The Folly of Man's Wisdom

All right, please turn in your Bible to Isaiah 19. We'll be reading verses 1 through 15 here in Isaiah 19.

So when you have that, please stand for the reading of God's Word. We've been going through these various oracles against the nations here in this section of Isaiah, and now we come to an oracle regarding Egypt, an oracle against Egypt.

We've been through many since Isaiah, since they began in Isaiah 13, and here we come to another, each of them having their own particular character and purpose.

Egyptians against Egyptians, and they will fight, each against another, and each against his neighbor.

City against city, kingdom against kingdom, and the spirit of the Egyptians within them will be emptied out.

And I will confound their counsel, and they will inquire of the idols and the sorcerers, and the mediums and the necromancers.

And I will give over the Egyptians into the hand of a hard master, and a fierce king will rule over them, declares the

Lord God of hosts. And the waters of the sea will be dried up, and the rivers will be dry and parched, and its canals will become foul, and the branches of Egypt's Nile will diminish and dry up.

Reeds and rushes will rot away. There will be bare places by the Nile, on the brink of the Nile, and all that is sown by the

Nile will be parched, will be driven away, and will be no more. The fishermen will mourn and lament, and all who cast a hook in the

Nile, and they will languish, who spread nets on the water. The workers in combed flax will be in despair, and the weavers of white cotton.

Those who are the pillars of the land will be crushed, and all who work for pay will be grieved. The princes of Zoan are utterly foolish.

The wisest counselors of Pharaoh give stupid counsel. How can you say to Pharaoh, I am a son of the wise, a son of ancient kings?

Where then are your wise men? Let them tell you that they might know what the Lord of hosts has purposed against Egypt.

The princes of Zoan have become fools, and the princes of Memphis are deluded.

Those who are the cornerstones of our tribes have made Egypt stagger. The Lord has mingled within a spirit of confusion, and they will make

Egypt stagger in all its deeds, as a drunken man staggers in his vomit, and there will be nothing for Egypt that head or tail, palm branch or reed may do.

You may be seated. Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for your word to us.

You have given us much, much wisdom in your word, and we often take it for granted.

I pray that you would enlighten our minds today as we come to it, eager for what you have to say to us.

I pray that you would open our hearts and ears to be receptive of your word. In Jesus' name, amen. So perhaps as you look at the world around you, you see foolishness, lots and lots of foolishness.

And maybe this has perplexed you, why there is just so much foolishness in the world. The Bible says a lot about the reason there is foolishness in the world, and one of the main reasons is that God sends foolishness as punishment.

And so, as we consider the world around us, as we think about how we should respond and whether or not we should be disturbed by this or have peace with it,

I think we can have a lot of peace if we understand a little more of what the Bible says about how God is working through sending foolishness upon nations.

And ultimately, I believe this points us to Christ, the one who is wisdom from God. So, God sends foolishness as punishment.

He does this in order to reveal his own wisdom, and then ultimately, in order to point us to Jesus Christ.

So let's begin here in Isaiah 19 .1. An oracle concerning Egypt. Behold, the

Lord is riding on swift cloud and comes to Egypt. And the idols of Egypt will tremble at his presence, and the heart of the

Egyptians will melt within them. So, the Psalms occasionally speak of God riding on the clouds, and you even see this described in the beginning of Ezekiel, that God rides on the clouds, that he is swift, he is above all things, and he brings judgment swiftly.

What could move faster than something carried along by the very wind? And so, as he comes to Egypt, the idols tremble, and the heart of the

Egyptians melts within them. They know that God has come in judgment. They have nothing that they can do to stand against him.

Now, of course, idols are not real gods, but 1 Corinthians 10 speaks of demonic forces behind them.

When God contends with evil in the world, it's not merely with men, but with demonic beings as well, those who tempt and stand behind much of the evil in the world.

And I will stir up Egyptians against Egyptians, and they will fight each against another, and each against his neighbor, city against city, kingdom against kingdom.

You have here a description of a nation being so thrown into confusion that brother wars against brother.

You have this stated a bunch of different ways. Egyptians against Egyptians, neighbors against neighbors, cities against cities, kingdoms against kingdoms, or a kingdom against a kingdom.

We see this occasionally held out as a punishment upon people, that people will war with itself and defeat its own self.

You see that most vividly displayed in the battle of Gideon, where he goes against the

Midianites, and they, in confusion, in a confusion that God places on them, destroy each other.

Rather than just being defeated by God's people, God makes it clear that he has done this by destroying them directly and causing them to destroy each other.

See, God is very, um, very purposeful in the kind of judgments he sends, judgments that will make it clear who it is that has done this, that it is the

Lord, and who it is that is truly wise, and who it is that is foolish and confused.

And so, as we consider that God sends foolishness as judgment, consider that if you want wisdom, the way to find wisdom is to seek it from God, not merely, um, reading the word, but going to him submissively asking for his wisdom.

He withholds wisdom from those who oppose him. There are all kinds of people who have sought wisdom, done much study, but because they have not been submitted to the

Lord, they have not really found true wisdom. And there are many people who know very little from a human perspective, have not spent much time in book study, yet because they have come to the

Lord in submission, they have found much wisdom. And also, as we consider this, should also give us peace as we consider why there is so much foolishness in the world.

What does this mean? Does it mean that the world is crumbling and has no hope?

Well, in a way, it does show, you know, God's judgment. But in another way, it shows that God is at work.

You don't need to think of this as some incompetence of the world that represents something, something bad that is outside of God's control, but rather this is something within God's control that he is purposefully doing.

And so, as you see that calamity in the world of people being foolish and acting foolish, have peace.

Know that God is at work. He is, he is the one accomplishing this. This is not outside of his control.

And the spirit of the Egyptians within them will be emptied out, and I will confound their counsel, and they will inquire of the idols and the sorcerers and the mediums and the necromancers, and I will give over the

Egyptians into the hand of a hard master. You see here that the nation as a whole is thrown into this confusion and disarray.

They appeal to poor counsel. They begin acting very foolishly. They go to idols and sorcerers and mediums and necromancers, you know, quintessential poor sources of wisdom.

You know, just as a sidebar, if you want to know that someone's really far from God's wisdom, if they are going to the dead for wisdom and not the

God of the living, or not even other living people, if they are going to the dead for wisdom, you can know they have been thrown into much foolishness.

And, you know, especially as you consider the other religions in the world, especially in the history of the church,

Roman Catholicism, and lately I've been doing a lot of thinking about Roman Catholicism, studying what they believe and what the general practices, you know, boots on the ground kind of, what is the average

Roman Catholic, what does their life look like? So much is wrapped around seeking things from the dead, seeking things from saints, seeking things from Mary.

I recently asked a Roman Catholic how this, how this fit with, you know, the prohibitions against necromancy in the

Bible, which necromancy isn't, I guess a lot of people think of it as just trying to raise the dead or things like that, but it's just speaking to the dead.

Anytime you are speaking to the dead, you're engaged in necromancy. And I would, as a sidebar on the sidebar, mention that if you ever, you know, if you ever go to a graveside or you're speaking at a funeral, be careful the way you speak.

Do not address the dead as though they can hear you, because these are things that are prohibited in Scripture. But anyway,

I asked, I asked this man, you know, how this fit against Scripture's prohibitions against necromancy, and I expected some kind of standard answer, but this was not anything he had ever thought of.

And I don't know how many Roman Catholics have just never thought how plain this is in the Bible that, that this is, this is quintessential foolishness to seek the dead, to seek wisdom from the dead.

And here, so many people who think they have been saved by Christ are going to the dead for wisdom instead of the

God of the living. And I will give over the

Egyptians into the hand of a hard master, and a fierce king will rule over them, declares the

Lord God of hosts. Calvin famously said, perhaps you've heard this quote before, when

God wants to judge a nation, he gives them into the hand of wicked rulers. Uh, I find it funny in a way how often that is quoted.

I suppose it's just very, a clear and crisp statement, but it's really not far from just some of these verses we have right here.

You know, I will give them into a hand of a cruel master. Proverbs 28 16 says that a ruler who's without understanding is a cruel oppressor.

God, in judging nations, he sends hard rulers upon the nations. And what are those hard rulers?

Yes, they're described as tyrants, but they're also described as ones without understanding. You know, it is not, uh, tyrants aren't always the kind of people who, uh, are cackling and tapping their fingers like this, trying to see what evil things they can do, right?

They're people who, out of some kind of good intentions, have paved the road to hell. People out of good intentions who do not know what is right end up engaging in tyranny.

And, uh, you can see that all around the world. You know, you look at last year and all the restrictions that were placed on the worship of God and restrictions that were not placed on other things.

Uh, it's clear that, you know, people just without understanding, without knowing what

God values, knowing what they value but not what God values, and out of some kind of supposed good intentions, uh, end up being cruel oppressors.

So, consider this as you consider once again the world around you. What I'm trying to give you is a lot of tools for understanding the world around you.

Uh, people have been cautious, and I think for good reason, of trying to read too much into God's hand of providence, right?

You see calamities like, uh, earthquakes and tsunamis and, uh, the pandemic, right?

You see things like that, and you know that there is a tendency of some branches of Christianity to blame whatever comes about on their favorite sin or something that God has done this because of that.

Sure, so there are, there are, uh, unprincipled ways that you could be reading things into God's providence, but He tells us much about what

He's doing in the world. You know, it's not like He has left us without clues. He gives us passages like this where He describes exactly what

He does when a nation departs, parts from Him. He gives them into hands of cruel tyrants, and He sends, uh, certain calamities, and so on and so forth.

And, you know, uh, considering the pandemic, consider that, um, when God was displeased with His worship, what did

He do? He would destroy His own temple. That's the first thing that came to my mind when you see churches everywhere shutting down by, you know, this, this act of God.

There are, there are cautious and biblically informed ways that we can read God's hand of providence if we're, if we're informed by scripture.

Something else you can take away from this is that there is real value to a notion of, of national repentance.

I know that that, uh, has been abused by a lot of people to, um, impose guilt on individuals that doesn't belong unto them or to, or to, uh, promote things like reparations.

But every single person in a nation, or almost every single person, suffers from the calamity that is a wicked ruler, right?

Suffers from the calamities that, that happen on the nation as a whole. Uh, we're not independent islands.

Uh, we do suffer alongside of each other, and so we, uh, as people who live in this land, have an obligation, especially, to reach the people of this land.

Um, you might be inclined by some individualistic spirit to think, well, you know, those are the people of the world.

I'm me. You know, I serve God on my own, and so it doesn't matter what they're doing. Well, it, there is a right way of saying that, but there is a wrong way of saying that too, and that, and that, uh, to not think that they would bring harm by their sin upon you.

They will. And so we ought to be sharing the gospel widely, not just out of a concern for others, which we should have, but even out of a concern for ourselves that, uh, that people do not, um, anger the

Lord who is, who is above all men. You know, think about this as you, as you raise your children, as you interact with, with others in the workplace.

There is, there is value in sharing, uh, the knowledge of God that, uh, extends, uh, even into, you know, this, this, uh, this temporal existence that we have here.

Yes, there's, there's the much greater, greater value of salvation for all eternity, but there is even value here in this, here in this life.

Moving on to verse 5, he begins describing a calamity that God will send, and the waters of the sea will be dried up, and the rivers will, and the river, excuse me, this is referring specifically to the

Nile, so I, I shouldn't say rivers, and the river will be dry and parched, and its canals will become foul, and the branches of Egypt's Nile will diminish and dry up.

Reeds and rushes will rot away. So you imagine, um, you know, as the, as the water descends and everything,

I don't know if you've ever been to a creek that, where the water has recently dried up, and so everything's still muddy, and, you know, you've got all the bacteria that was way under the, uh, way under the mud now, you know, just bubbling up to the surface.

It smells pretty rancid, even if there's not, you know, dead fish and everything like are being described here. The fishermen, uh, there will be bare places by the

Nile, on the brink of the Nile, and all that is sown by the Nile will be parched, will be driven away, and will be no more.

The fishermen will mourn and lament all who cast a look in the Nile, and they will languish, because obviously there will be no fish, uh, will languish who spread nets on the waters.

Uh, the workers in combed flax will be in despair, and the weavers of white cotton.

Why? Because, uh, the, the water from the Nile, um, uh, bringing water to cotton fields, you know, cotton a big thing in Egypt.

I mean, even today, you know, you look at your towel, and it says 100 % Egyptian cotton or whatever, right? That's, this is what this is talking about.

Uh, those who are the pillars of the land will be crushed, and all who work for pay will be grieved. So you see, high in society, the low in society, every single one of them affected by this act of God.

And, uh, you know, as I'm suggesting, we, we consider these things as we're, uh, to inform ourselves of regarding the world around us.

I don't think it's without coincidence that, uh, you know, this speaks of rulers, and then immediately moves on to the economic fallout of, of this act of God in sending foolishness, right?

He sends foolishness, he sends calamities, and what you have is economic fallout. And you look at our society, uh, where, um, inflation is at 6 .8%.

These are not, you know, independent things of, uh, these are, these are related.

These are coming together. Uh, both, both, uh, rulers, calamities, wicked rulers and calamities coming together, producing economic fallout.

Uh, you see the same thing described right here in scripture. The princes of Zoan are utterly foolish, and the wisest counselors of Pharaoh give stupid counsel.

How can you say to Pharaoh, I am a son of the wise, a son of ancient kings?

And so, as I said, God sends foolishness as a punishment, but he does it in order to reveal his wisdom.

So now, as the people realize that they have no answers for their situation, as they realize, as they're forced to realize that they are foolish, they would know that only

God truly has the answers. Only he knows what he is accomplishing in all of this. You can imagine some counselor of Pharaoh saying,

I'm the son of the wise, a son of ancient kings. Here's my pedigree and why I'd be the perfect magician or counselor for you.

Uh, but they're not able to give real answers. Where then are your wise men?

Let them tell you that they might know what the Lord of hosts has purposed against Egypt.

There are no, uh, yeah, there are no men who have answers to what

God has, has sent to them, but let them tell you that they may know what the Lord of hosts has purposed against Egypt.

And you see this a lot later in Isaiah in the, uh, the 40s, those chapters. He challenges the idols to say, don't just explain the future to me, even just tell me the past.

What does any of it mean? What am I doing? None of you know. None of you have any idea what the trajectory is.

You see, God doesn't just know the future. He is accomplishing the future. He's accomplishing it now in the present.

He's accomplishing it in the past. And when he sends such foolishness and, and, uh, large calamities on the earth, he has a purpose in what he's accomplishing.

And because he has, um, and like I said, there are some, uh, cautious ways we can read this, but ultimately we don't know what he intends to do with these things.

The secret things belong to the Lord, and there's much that is secret about what he is accomplishing in these calamities.

And so as you go to someone, you say, what is God accomplishing? And what is the, what is the trajectory of history here?

People might have various ideas, but they don't know. Only the Lord knows what he is accomplishing through his actions.

He is the actor. He has the intent. He has given us some, um, general idea, excuse me, some general ideas of what he's accomplishing, uh, some, uh, general framework of how he operates, but he has not told us in specifics.

And being in a situation where you have calamities around you, and you want to know what the future holds, but are not able to, you're forced to realize just how weak and worthless your wisdom is.

Verse 13, the princes of Zoan have become fools, and the princes of Memphis are deluded. Those who are the cornerstones of her tribes have made

Egypt stagger. The Lord has mingled within her a spirit of confusion, and they will make

Egypt stagger in all its deeds. As a drunken man staggers in his vomit, and there will be nothing for Egypt.

That head or tail, palm branch or reed may do. Those last phrases being the same as what it said before, uh, the pillars and those who work for pay, right?

The head or the tail, the palm branch or the reed. God sends this confusion on them, uh, so much so that they're like one staggering in his own vomit, having no sense of, having no sense of anything.

And so, as we are pointed here to God's wisdom being far greater than, than any wisdom man has, we should appreciate, we should appreciate

God's wisdom, uh, knowing, uh, that it is good. We should seek his wisdom, and we should, um, come to his word submissively, uh, knowing that it has much to offer.

You know, as I mentioned before, there are many who have spent all kinds of time studying all sorts of things, but it doesn't matter what you have a

PhD in. If you have a moderate understanding of the wisdom the Bible has to offer, then you have more than any of those

PhDs. Psalm 119 .99 says, I have more understanding than all my teachers, for your testimonies are my meditation.

That's an incredible truth, and I remember being, uh, uh, pretty struck with that as a,

I don't know what age, I suppose high schooler, but that, you know, my teachers obviously knew more than me in whatever field they were teaching me, but sum total of valuable things to know,

I knew I had far more understanding than any of them, right? And that should not lead you to pride because it's by the

Lord's grace that he would give you such a thing, but that is just something far more valuable than any of the wisdom the world has to offer.

And not only should we appreciate it in seeking it, but we should appreciate what God is doing in his wisdom, not knowing what he is doing, not knowing what he is accomplishing because he's good and he is accomplishing good things.

So we don't always know what the trajectory history is. In fact, we never know exactly because we don't know the future exactly, but we know that God is good and we can trust him when we see the world around us acting foolish and pointing us to his wisdom.

Let's consider the ultimate wisdom that God is pointing to here. You know, as we've gone through Isaiah, we've seen that each one of these at -work rules and many of the chapters that went before, if not all of them really, are ultimately pointing to Jesus Christ, right?

They're ultimately pointing to him coming and here to him being the wisdom of God. And we'll look at this passage next week, but just to give you a little bit of a proof of that, verse 23 says, in that day there will be a highway from Egypt to Assyria, and Assyria will come into Egypt, and Egypt into Assyria, and the

Egyptians will worship with the Assyrians. In that day, Israel will be the third with Egypt and Assyria, a blessing in the midst of the earth.

And the Lord of hosts has blessed, saying, blessed be Egypt, my people, and Assyria, the work of my hands, and Israel, my inheritance.

Now we'll look at that more next time, but is that not a very obvious statement of the gospel, that you have these unnatural branches being grafted into the tree of Israel, like you see in Romans 11?

This is prophesying the gospel. You have God giving men a stumbling block that they would fall over, not knowing his wisdom, being forced to recognize that he is the truly wise one, and him using that to send some to Jesus Christ, who is true wisdom, so that they may be grafted in to that tree of Israel, so that they might have salvation along with all of God's people.

And we had a phrase in here earlier, where are your wise men?

You know, that sounds very much like 1 Corinthians. Where is the debater of this age?

And so I'd like to go ahead and read a little at length from 1 Corinthians, which I believe is ultimately the fulfillment of what we were looking at in Isaiah 19.

So if you go ahead and turn there to 1 Corinthians 1, I will start in verse 18.

For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.

For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.

Where is the wise one? Sorry, where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age?

Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since in the wisdom of God the world did not know

God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe.

For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but those who are called, so those who are called, both

Jews and Greeks, Christ, the power of God, and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.

So here you have a statement about the wisdom of God being revealed in Jesus Christ, but to everyone else, foolishness.

He destroys the wisdom of the wise, the discernment of the discerning he will thwart. He's a stumbling block that people fall over and are crushed.

You know, this scene you have about Egypt, it is a picture of what is happening.

It's a picture of nations, of what is happening spiritually among people as God has sent his gospel and people have rejected it, not having the wisdom to understand it because they don't have the mind of Christ, not seeing

God's wisdom, and one day they will be forced to recognize that they simply have not understood

God's wisdom. And as 1 Corinthians 2 speaks, it shows that what we need is the mind of Christ.

We need the Holy Spirit. There's no way to understand what God understands without having his own mind, his own mind that is given to us by the

Holy Spirit. So, on one hand, you know, as we look at Egypt, yes, it is, it gives us some information on how we should read our own world and our own nation, but ultimately it points to something that transcends nations themselves, a great spiritual nation and another great spiritual nation that are at odds and at war.

And there is a wisdom in this one that the other just cannot understand because they do not have the mind of Christ, and what we need is the mind of Christ.

And if God, who is a good father, would give—if a good father would give good things, how much more will

God give his Holy Spirit to those who ask? So, as we go to the Lord in prayer today, let us ask for his wisdom.

Let's pray. Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you for the wisdom that you have given in Jesus Christ.

The Bible says that in him all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are held. He is wisdom from on high.

Lord, we thank you for him, and we thank you that by him you've given us your Spirit so we can, so that we can know and understand.

I pray that you would give us ever more of your Spirit, and God, I pray that you would give us a mind that could understand the world around us and have peace, knowing that you are good and knowing that you are doing good things, even though the world around us is in great confusion and turmoil.