To the 29th chapter of the book of Ezekiel this morning, we're going to look at the Song of Egypt. The Song of Egypt. But just before we look at the Song of Egypt, we want to take a quick look at the saga or the tale of the demise and destruction of the city of Sidon. And this begins in verse 20 of chapter 28. This is the sixth eviction notice that Ezekiel has passed out. The word of the Lord came this time, saying, Son of man, set thy face against Sidon, and prophesy against it. Thus saith the Lord God, Behold, I am against thee, O Sidon, and I will be glorified in the midst of thee. And they shall know that I am the Lord, when I shall have executed judgments in her, and shall be sanctified in her. And I will send a pestilence and blood into her streets, and the wounded shall be judged in the midst of her by the sword upon her every side. And they shall know that I am the Lord. And there shall be no more a pricking briar under the house of Israel, nor any grieving thorn of all that are round about them that despise them. And they shall know that I am the Lord God." And so we find that Sidon was evicted along with Ammon and Moab and Edom and Philistia and Tyre. Six nations. And God said to these six nations, you will no longer be in existence. I have declared and decreed that you shall pass into the night of oblivion, that you will not be found or numbered among the nations of the world. And it is very interesting to see that God's word has been fulfilled exactly to the letter, that these nations are not in existence today. And you can search through the halls of the United Nations And you can read the records of the minutes of that organization and other world organizations that have been in existence before. But the Moabites and the Philistines and the Ammonites and the Edomites aren't there. They're gone. You say, well, Pastor, that's not so unusual, because a lot of the nations that existed then are gone. Ah, but a lot of them are still here. There's Lebanon. There's Syria. There's Egypt. There's Persia. and others. Ethiopia, they're still here. Libya, they're still here today. But these are among the missing. And why are they among the missing? Because God said they would be among the missing. God is sovereign. God is omnipotent. And what God says always takes place. And now in chapter 29 through chapter 32, we have the story of Egypt, the song of Egypt. I'm only going to preach to you from chapter 29. It will be your responsibility to read on your own chapter 30, 31, and 32. Next Sunday morning, we will be in chapter 33, looking at God's call to Ezekiel to be a watchman as we begin the thrilling section of chapters that deal with the future restoration of the nation of Israel. The most exciting of all of those will be chapter 37, or one of the most exciting. When we get to that chapter in God said, Ezekiel, look at that valley of dry bones. I want you to preach to them. Have you ever studied the 37th chapter of Ezekiel and that valley of dry bones? Oh, a great chapter, an exciting chapter to study. And starting next Sunday with chapter 33, we're going to be heading toward the restoration. of the nation of Israel, history which is being fulfilled today before our very eyes as it was given to the prophet 2,500 years ago, almost 2,600 years ago. But today we're still back here in chapter 29, and we're looking at the Song of Egypt. What is God going to do with Egypt? And we find that he has a message for the nation of Egypt, but it's a different message than he's given to the others. For they are not going to be permanently evicted. They are going to be put out for 40 years. And at the end of 40 years, they are going to be brought back into the land again. In other words, God says to Ezekiel, Ezekiel, I want you to tell the nation of Egypt that I'm going to deal with them because of their sin, but I'm going to bring them back. And he said, Ezekiel, they are going to be a national entity until just before my Messiah returns. Now, all of this is not included in the prophecy to Ezekiel, but when we take Ezekiel 29 and link it up with Daniel 11, there we have the story of Egypt. The verse of the song of Egypt is in Ezekiel 29, and the chorus is Daniel 11. Let's look now at Egypt. What is this nation of Egypt? The nation of Egypt, in the word of God, is always a picture of sin. It is a picture of the world. The Israelite, as he went down to Egypt, was going down to the place of world, the place of compromise, the place of backsliding, the place of sin, and the place of idolatry. It stands for all that is wicked and all that is evil and against God. When Abraham took his eyes off God, he sojourned in the land of Egypt, and he was defeated, and sin was found in his life in the land of Egypt. When Isaac took his eyes off of God, he went down to the land of Egypt. And Isaac failed in the land of Egypt. When Jacob took his eyes off of God, he went down to the land of Egypt. And there they were sold in compromise. And they engaged, as we saw here in the book of Ezekiel, in horrible idolatry to the extent that God allowed them to suffer the bondage of slavery for hundreds of years. Yes, Egypt is a great picture in the Word of God. of the wickedness and the sin of the world. It stands for and symbolizes unrighteousness. You see, Egypt has always been an enemy of the nation of Israel. Following the death of Joseph, when another king arose up who knew not Joseph, from that time on, the nation of Egypt has been against the nation of Israel all through their history. except for one brief period of time when Solomon married the Pharaoh's daughter, and for just a little while there was a truce, so to speak, between the two nations. But not only was Egypt in conflict with the nation of Israel, but Egypt was also in conflict with the empires that began to arise in the northeastern section of the Mediterranean area, those empires that arose around the great Euphrates River. the empires of Assyria, and then following that the empire of Babylon and Persia. And there was a conflict between the empires of the Euphrates River and the empire of the Nile River. And they fought back and forth until finally the empires of the East conquered and prevailed, just as God predicted they would here in Ezekiel's prophecy. Now you say, well, as long as Egypt and Babylon were fighting one another, Israel was in fairly good position, weren't they? For after all, if your enemies are fighting each other, they can't be too bothered with you. Well, usually that's the case, but there's a unique situation here, and that is this, that Israel is strategically placed between the two. It would be like having two neighbors on either side of you that are fighting with one another, and they're constantly running through your living room to get at each other. This would cause problems for you, wouldn't it? And so this is part of the problem that Israel had. That when Babylon came down to conquer Egypt, they came through Israel's living room. And when Egypt came up to conquer Babylon, they came through Israel's living room. And so the children of Israel were constantly plagued with the armies of Babylon and Egypt and Persia passing through. And, of course, as they passed through, they didn't just keep their hands to themselves, but tremendous problems for Israel were also involved. In the year 605, Pharaoh Necho was on the throne of Egypt, and he was overcome by Nebuchadnezzar in the Battle of Carchemish. Following him, he had a son by the name of Semitki, the second. He took over about 594 B.C., and he reigned from 594 B.C. to 588 B.C. And now we come down to Ezekiel's day when Zedekiah is on the throne. Jerusalem is under siege. It hasn't yet fallen, and Zedekiah is beside himself. He's in hope that Egypt is going to come up and help him in the siege. Jeremiah said that he would come, but Jeremiah said that Egypt would come and then would go back, and Sarah Huff Pharaoh Hophra, not Sarah. I get it mixed up with Pharaoh and Father Sarah, I guess. But Pharaoh Hophra is on the throne, and he remains on the throne from 588 to 569. When he dies a horrible death, he is strangled by the man who took his place, a Pharaoh by the name of Amasis in 569 BC. This pharaoh Hophra is the same one who was recognized in history by the historian Herodotus, and he called him by the name of Aipres. But it's the same man. And he's on the throne in the land of Egypt as Ezekiel begins to prophesy. And we know exactly when Ezekiel is getting this message for the land of Egypt, because he tells us in verse 1 of chapter 29 that it's the tenth year of the tenth month, in the twelfth day of the month, on that particular day in the year 587 B.C., God spoke to Ezekiel and gave him a message for the nation and for the land of Egypt. God tells us exactly when it was. And so it was a year after Pharaoh Hophra had ascended the throne of Egypt, and God gives a message to this great king of Egypt from the throne of heaven. Now, you know, it'd be an interesting thing to get a message directly from the throne of God, wouldn't it? I wonder how you'd feel this morning if I had the gift of prophecy as Ezekiel had it, and I said to you, I have a message for you today, and I named you by name. It has come directly from God. Well, I'm sure that you'd be interested in what I had to say, wouldn't you? I don't have such a message. The prophetic ministry of Revelation closed, the word of God tells us, with the end of the book of Revelation. I believe that with all my heart. I believe that 1 Corinthians 13 indicates to us that the New Testament was completed, and that when it was completed, the ministry of revelation came to an end, that we have here in the full text of the Old and New Testament the entire revelation of God for this age in which we live. So I don't have a prophetic message for you today, but Ezekiel had one for Egypt, and here it was, verse 2, chapter 29. Son of man, set thyself against Pharaoh, king of Egypt, and prophesy against him, and against all Egypt, and speak and say, Thus saith the Lord God, Behold, I am against you, Pharaoh, king of Egypt. Dear friends, this morning if Almighty God, with His power, His omnipotence, His sovereignty, His majesty, His glory and His wonder, if Almighty God sent a message to one of His faithful prophets to me and God said, I am against you, I believe that I'd be quaking in my wounds. Don't you? This is indeed a tragic message that comes to the nation of Egypt. When Almighty God says, I am against you, You see, God is against sin. There's a great message in the Bible, and we need to get a hold of it in a practical sense in our lives, and we need to make that message ours. You know, the Bible says that we need to be like Christ. The Bible says, let the mind of Christ be in you. Now, the mind of Christ is the mind of God, and we need to realize that God is against sin. And we need to be against sin as God is against sin. We live in a world today in which sin is rampant around us. Rampant to the extent that many times we have come to the place in our lives where we accept it and we condone it and sometimes we give tacit approval to it. Dear friends, may God help us as Christians today to have the mind of God toward the sin and the wickedness of this world. May God help us to be against it. God is against sin, but praise God, God is for sinners. Those are the two great truths in the Word of God that we need to get a hold of. We need to be against sin as God is against sin, but we need to love sinners as God loves sinners. You know, there are many Christians today who hate sin and sinners, and that in itself is sin. Did you know that? Oh, may God help us today to hate sin but to love sinners. God loves sinners. Praise God, the Bible reveals to us that there's not a man in this world that God is against in his heart. The Word of God says that when Jesus Christ died on the cross of Calvary, he tasted death. The Bible tells me for every man. You know, there's some folks who try to tell me that he only died for the redeemed. I say, I was going to say baloney, but I won't say that. But I say foolishness. Ridiculous! My Bible reveals to me that when Jesus died on the cross of Calvary, that He, by the grace of God, tasted death for every man, that God loved sinners enough that He gave His Son to die for the vilest sinner that ever lived, because God loves sinners. The Bible says He's not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. And oh, may God help us this morning as believers to love sinners! and to love their souls and to be as concerned about sinners as God was and as God is. May God help us today at the same time to hate sin as God hates it and to keep it out of our lives whenever it begins to emerge and show its ugly head. God said, I am against thee. I am against thee." Dear Christians, if God is against an unbelieving nation's sin, how much more is God going to be against sin in the lives of his own children? Peter says the time has come when judgment must begin at the house of God. Oh, as parents, we hate to see our children rebel against us. We hate to see our children do things that displease us. Oh, how much more does our Heavenly Father hate to see those of us who are his own tolerate and commit sin in our lives. God is against the sin of the unbelievers. And dear friends, God is against sin in the lives of his own children. And praise God, he's made every provision for us to have total victory over sin. And he's told us that if we do sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous, and we can get forgiveness for that sin and we can be cleansed of that sin. And we have the victory and power in Christ to stay free from that sin. God is so much against sin in the lives of His children that He has given to us every possibility of getting rid of it and having victory over it. There's not a Christian here this morning that can lift his voice to heaven and say, Oh God, I hate my sin, but I can't help myself. Praise God! Every Christian in this room this morning has the privilege of lifting his voice toward God and saying, Oh God, I've sinned, and I hate it, and I confess it, and God will forgive it, and then God will give you the strength to stay away from it and to have victory over it. Do you believe that? It's in the Word, because God is against sin, and he wants his children to be free of it. God says to the nation of Israel, I'm going to bring judgment upon you for two reasons. And what are these two reasons? First of all, because you as a nation and as a king are again guilty of the sin of pride. Dear Christians, if there is one thing that we should learn from these eviction notices that we have been studying, it is this, that God hates pride. Notice what he says there in verse three. Say to this king, Pharaoh, I am against you, you great monster. Now, God was referring to him, and God called him a great big crocodile. You great big crocodile that lies in the midst of the river! You see, the crocodile was one of the gods. or representations of God that the ancient Egyptians worshipped. And the crocodile was very much in evidence around the Nile River. You see, in those days they perhaps hadn't heard yet of alligator-crocodile shoes, and so the crocodiles got along a little better than they do today. And when you went down to the Nile River, you kept your eye out for the crocodiles because they were there in force. And God says, I know who you are, you old sleeping crocodile, down there in the midst of the land of Egypt. And you have said, the river is my own. I have made it for myself. You see, this pharaoh was a pharaoh who had come in and he'd taken up the work of his predecessors and he had developed that Nile River from which they got all of their strength and riches and wealth and living. You see, the rivers would flood every year and they would overflow and they would leave a rich deposit of silt along the top of the fields and then the waters would recede and this beautiful rich soil was left behind so that they were able to grow rich crops and produce. to feed the nation of Egypt. And then along with it they had developed irrigation systems and viaducts and waterways had been constructed so that all year long, through the engineering skill and genius which this king had sponsored, they were able to produce and productively use the water of the Nile. And this king was presenting himself to the people and he was saying, I am your savior. I am your God. I am the one who has made you what you are as a nation. My river is my own and I have made it for myself. Verse 9. And they shall know that I am the Lord, because he hath said, The river is mine, and I have made it. You see, this man was not willing to give credit to God, but he wanted to receive glory and credit unto himself. Oh, may God help us today as believers to recognize that the thing that God cannot tolerate and the thing that God will not tolerate is pride, which is openly, overtly manifested in the lives of his people. or of any people. And over and over again, God has wiped these nations out of existence because of the pride of their leaders and of the pride of the people. But dear Christians, may I say this today, that the word of God is filled with admonition after admonition in the New Testament, as we've given to you on other days, and that is this, that God cannot use Christians who are filled with pride. And one thing that I have noted in the ministry in it is this, that whenever we see people who were lifted up and puffed up with pride, you will always see someone who is unusable, and whose ministry is dead and dry, and whose life is a blight on all that they touch. The Bible says, in Romans chapter 12, I admonish you, each one as Christians, not to think of yourselves more highly than you ought to think. Oh, the tragedy that exists today is that there are hundreds and hundreds of Christians who are of no use for God because they are lifted up with spiritual pride. How does spiritual pride manifest itself? Oh, there are many ways. that spiritual pride will manifest it. You know, there are many who are so spiritually proud that they cannot be ministered to by any but just a few of the very elite. You know, I have found people who have such spiritual pride that they just can't be listened to, ministered to by anyone except a great scholar or a great teacher. You know, I praise God that I've come to realize that it's not men that minister to us, it's the Spirit of God, and the Spirit of God can work through anyone, even a child. Did you know that? And you know, I have found that if someone will get up and will open up the Word of God, they might be the poorest speaker and they might be the most humblest of men, but if they will get up in the power and yieldedness of the Holy Spirit of God and open up the Word of God, that God can minister blessing to my life through that individual. I don't care who you are, it can happen to you too. When the Apostle Paul wrote to the Corinthian church, he said, I know I didn't come to you with excellency of speech. And he said, I know some of the people are criticizing me. And they say, well, we don't like that Paul, because he's kind of cranky. He's kind of mean. He's kind of cantankerous. And he doesn't speak very well anyway. And we like to have someone like Apollo. We need somebody who can really move. The Apostle Paul said, I didn't come to you with excellency of speech. But he said, I came to you with the message of God. And those who will receive it and those who did receive it were blessed. You know, I've been blessed by a little child getting up and giving forth the word of God in a testimony. Spiritual pride manifests itself. You know, there are some Christians who just think they can't be ministered to unless it's somebody who is almost of the stature of God himself. Spiritual pride leads us. Oh, may God deliver us from that kind of a heart attitude. How else does it manifest itself? Spiritual pride manifests itself many times in our lives by the fact that we feel that we can only minister to certain groups. Don't expect me to go to the rescue mission. Don't expect me to talk to some old folks at the rest home. Don't expect me to teach a class of nursery children. Now, dear friends, God has given to each of us different gifts and different callings and different ministries. But I say this to you, there isn't one person in all this world that you should be above ministering to. Did you know that? And yet there are hundreds of Christians today who have no ministry at all because they have too much spiritual pride to be used of God wherever God might want to use them. Did you know that? Listen to me. It's great to preach a sermon, but I want to tell you this, the most rewarding work in all the world is preaching the gospel to boys and girls before they ever get to school. You know why? Because those are the most fertile hearts for the gospel that you can run across. It's ten times easier to reach a primary boy or girl to Jesus Christ than it is to reach a high schooler Now, God hasn't called all of us to minister to all groups, but I believe that each one of us should have the attitude, God, I'll go where you want me to go. And God, if you want me to go down and preach to one person on Skid Row, then God, I want to do that. That's where I'll go. I'm not above any ministry. to anyone, anytime, anyplace, anywhere. I think of Philip in the book of Acts. Philip was having a great revival. People were getting saved in droves. There was a tremendous ministry that was going on. And all of a sudden, in the midst of that, the Bible says that God said, Philip, I want you to leave here and go out in the desert. And he went out in the desert, and God had Philip go out in the desert and leave that great revival to go out and preach to one black man who was riding across the desert in a chariot. And I praise God that Philip was willing to preach to the masses, but Philip was also willing to go up into the chariot with a black Ethiopian slave. Oh, I know he had a place of authority, but he was still an Ethiopian slave. And Philip led him to Jesus Christ. You know, I'm sorry to say that there are many Christians that I know of today who have said, Lord, listen, if you don't have a good enough group, don't call on me. I'm too important to minister to one person. Oh, no. God hates pride. Because of pride, God wiped six nations out of existence. Dear Christians, why do we think that God is going to like pride and tolerate pride in our lives any more than he tolerated it in the lives of these people? If God wiped out nations that were not even His own because of the sin of pride, how much more will God deal with us as Christians if we allow pride to direct our lives? Dear Christians, if the Spirit of God is tugging at your heart this morning, open up! The Bible says God resists the proud Christian in 1 Peter 5, and He gives grace to the humble What kind of a Christian are you this morning? I admonish you, each one, not to think more highly of yourselves than you ought to, but soberly, righteously. Oh, may God help us today to have humble hearts, to be willing to be used wherever and whenever and however and to whomever God would send us. There was another reason why God judge the nation of Egypt? It's because they were undependable. They were unfaithful. Notice it in verse 6. God said, I want you to tell all the inhabitants of the land of Egypt, they shall know that I am the Lord, because they have been a staff of reed to the house of Israel. He said Israel needed a staff to hold on to. They needed someone to help them up. And he said when they leaned on the nation of Israel, they found that instead of leaning on a post, they were leaning on a reed, and you know a reed doesn't hold much up. Now Israel made a mistake here and a mistake that many of God's people make today, and that is that they were trusting in the arm of the flesh rather than the arm of God for their salvation and for their health. And we need to learn that as believers today, that we can't look to the arm of flesh. We cannot look to our human ability and strength in order to accomplish things for God. If there's anything that's going to be accomplished for God, it must be accomplished in the power of God himself. The Bible said through Zachariah, not by might nor by my power, but by my spirit will things be accomplished, saith the Lord. Or Philippians chapter 4, verse 13, I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. And too many times we seek to carry on the work of God in the effort of human strength. We need to come to that place where we are willing to say, Oh God, I realize that I can accomplish nothing for you apart from your strength in my life. You might be the most talented, gifted person in this room this morning, but dear friend, with all of your talents and with all of your gifts, you can't accomplish one thing for God. unless those talents and those gifts are totally yielded to the leading of His Holy Spirit. I believe the more talented and more gifted a person is, the more problem he has. Because it's so easy to lean on the arm of the flesh rather than on the strength of the Lord. In my years as a minister, I have noted that when we lean on the Lord, the Lord does things that last for eternity. And when we lean on the flesh, We accomplish things that last for a month. Did you know that? Time after time, I've had to learn this lesson over and over, that it's not by might, nor by power, nor by human ingenuity, nor by human intellect, nor by the manipulation of people through talents and skills, but it's by the power of God that things are going to be accomplished. Notice in verse 7, when Israel took a hold of you by the hand, you broke. You tore all their shoulder. Can you imagine yourself leaning on it when you're needing a help, needing a crutch? You lean on the crutch and the crutch breaks. And now you not only have a sore leg, but you have a torn shoulder. When they did lean upon thee, thou didst break, and thou made all their inward parts to shake." God says, I'm going to deal with you as a nation because when my people leaned upon you, they found that you were full of treachery, that you were undependable, that when the time came to stand, that you weren't there. I have learned by experience in the Lord's work that there are many, many of God's people who have not been willing to stand where God would have them to stand when the time for standing came. I have learned, as the nation of Israel learned, that you can't depend on people, that you must depend on God. I've seen people quit and walk out of more ministries than I could take time to enumerate here this morning. People that I know were quitting and walking out on things absolutely contrary to God's program and purpose for their lives. You say, how do you know? Because I've seen them walk out and go back. to a place of total ineffectiveness for God. The Bible says, my beloved brethren, therefore be ye steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, for as much as ye know that your labor is not in vain in the Lord. One of the first things that I say to everyone that comes to work in our church is this, now the first thing you must learn is this, that you have to look to the Lord. You can't look to people because people will let you down. And no matter how much I tell them, it isn't long until they come to my office, they're discouraged, and they have their heads hanging on the ground. They say, Pastor, what's the use? I depended on it. And they didn't do it. And I've had to get down and say, now look, we're not depending on people. We're depending on the Lord. But dear Christian, what is God going to do with those Christians whom he called to a task and they didn't fulfill it? a Sunday school teacher who doesn't show up, an elder, a deacon who isn't there, who fades out, who falls away. Do you think Israel was disappointed when this happened? I'll say they were. Is it easy to get disappointed in the Lord's work when people that you counted on are a reed instead of a staff, it hurts. It hurts. My prayer is this. Oh God, above everything else, help me to be a staff in your church. God, help me to be steadfast. God, help me to be one who can be counted on. Help me to be one God who will fulfill the jobs that you've called me to do. Let me ask you a question this morning. What kind of a Christian are you? Are you a staff or are you a reed? God judged this nation because they were reeds instead of staffs. How much more will God judge us who are his children when we become reeds? instead of staffs. Are you a Christian that God can count on? Will you stand in that ministry that he's called you to, no matter who or what or where or how? Or do you bend? Do you fold? Do you walk away when the pressure comes? I hope that God will speak to your heart this morning about your ministry and what it is. It's easy to look at what God did to Egypt and say, well, they sure got what was coming to them. But it's another thing when we turn the thumb around and say, boy, I wonder if we'll get what's coming to us. For you see, we find when we look at the thing that we have the same problems that Egypt had, that pride gets into our lives and that unfaithfulness can be ours. I don't care what ministry it is that God has called you to, if God has called you to it, dear Christian, be counted on by God and be there and be a staff in that ministry, whatever it may be. Whether it's a Sunday school teacher, a board member, a choir director, whatever it might be, choir member or director, too. I'm sort of hitting at one person when I say director. That was for you, Gary. I didn't mean to make it that personal. No matter what it might be, a coach, a committee member, whatever your ministry might be, say, Oh God, I'm going to be steadfast, unmovable. always abounding in that ministry until you move me to another one or show me that there's something else. Well, what's the future of Egypt? We don't have much time. In fact, we're just about through with our time, so we won't take a lot of time on it. Verse 13, they're going to be regathered. They were only put out for 40 years. He said, at the end of 40 years, I'm going to bring you back into the land. Verse 11, no foot shall pass through it, I'll put you out, no foot will pass through it. I like the way that God said He was going to put him out. God said, I'm going to get you, you old crocodile. He said, I'm going to put a nice piece of bait down there in the river, and I'm going to have you grab it, and I'm going to just pull you out by a hook in your mouth. Verse 5, God's going to go fishing, in other words. He said, when I pull you out, He said, I'm going to lay you out on that river bank upside down with your nice, big, tender stomach there. for everybody to pounce on. And he said, when you come along, he said, well, all the fish of the river are going to follow you right out. They're on the banks of the river. The fish represent the people of the nation. And he said, he said, I'm going to let the nation be totally destroyed. And he said, I'm going to keep it in this fashion for 40 years. I'm going to scatter you in the midst of the countries, verse 12, and their cities. And I will scatter you among the nations and will disperse them through the countries. God said, I'm going to send you out into the nations. And this is what happened. The Babylonians came in and they took the Egyptians by the thousands back to the land and they scattered them all over the earth. But God said, and at the end of 40 years, he said, I'm going to gather you all back again and you'll be back in the land of Egypt once more. Verse 13, at the end of the 40 years, I will gather them from among the people whom they were scattered. I will bring again the captivity of Egypt. I will cause them to return into the land of the pharaohs, into the land of their habitation. And there they shall be a base kingdom. But God says, when you come back, you will never come back to the grandeur and glory and power that you used to have. You will always be a second-rate nation from that time on. And you know, that's exactly what they were. They came back. But after they came back, the Persians came, and then the Greeks came, and then the Romans came, and they never were a national power, an international power, or entity from that time on. And even today, in the world in which we live, although Egypt is beginning to make a few grunts and groans and move a little bit, it's still a second-rate power and a second-rate nation. And why? Because God said that that's what they would be. They would never again even approach the power and glory that they once knew. God said, I'm going to let you come back, but you will always be and will ever remain a second rate power. And 2,500 years have gone by, and Egypt today is still a third or fourth rate power as far as world prominence and power and significance is concerned. And if you don't believe that, well, just remember that a few years ago, in six days, their entire army was almost entirely defeated by a tiny little nation called Israel. What's the eventual end of this nation? Daniel chapter 11. The great beast of the end time, that antichrist who's going to exist as a political leader of the Western world. The Bible says that he's going to come down from the north in the time of the tribulation period and he's going to totally destroy and defeat the nation of Egypt. And it will pass out of existence at that time. Once again, a thrilling, thrilling passage of scripture. portion of God's Word that's fulfilled totally to the letter. Dear friend, if I were here and I'd never yet trusted Jesus Christ, the God of this Bible is my personal Savior. Today, this morning, I would reach up to a God who was able to write history like this 2,500 years ahead of time, and I would accept this God as my God, and I would come to knowing through the only way in which you can know him, and that is by the personal acceptance of his Son, Jesus Christ, as your Savior. Shall we bow our heads in prayer? Every head bowed and every eye closed. Dear friend, as we've come to the end of our service this morning, it occurs to me that there might be some here who would have to say, Pastor, I do not know this God who predicted and brought these things we've talked about this morning to pass. Dear friend, you can know him in just a moment of time. All you have to do is to confess Jesus Christ, God's Son, as your Savior, just where you are. With our heads bowed and our eyes closed, I wonder if you might be willing to accept Him as your Savior this morning. You see, the Bible says, if you'll confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God raised you from the dead, you will be a Christian. And right there in that pew, right where you sit, you can have your sins forgiven. You can become a child of God right now. Just join me, if you will, in this simple prayer of salvation. Just say in your heart these words and mean them before God. Say, Oh God, I do believe that you are God. I believe that Jesus Christ is God who became man. I do believe you wrote this book. I believe you died for my sins. And right now I confess you as my savior. This message has been brought to you by the Santa Rosa Bible Church. Our mission is to see the lost reached and believers transformed by Jesus. You can find out more information about us at our website at srbible.org. Or you can visit us in person at 4575 Badger Road in Santa Rosa, California. You can also reach us by phone at 707-538-2385.