The Shame Of Egypt

The Folly of Trusting in Nations and in Egypt

Amen. Well, please turn in your Bible to Isaiah 30. We're going to be starting Isaiah 30 this afternoon. Just by way of reminder, once again, this section in Isaiah is primarily about the folly of trusting in the nations.

Now previously, it has all been very abstract, speaking of people's trust in other things and not trusting in the Lord, and now it gets specific, mentioning Egypt by name. So, when you have that, Isaiah 30, please stand for the reading of God's Word.

Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you today that you would help us to trust in you, that you would show us the folly of failing to trust in you and trusting in other things, and that we would be ones who thereby see clearly and are able to trust in what is true and what is good and not in what is rotten and corrupted and unable to save.

In Jesus' name, amen. Well, today we continue on speaking of trust. If you remember, the last passage we looked at, the last three verses of chapter 29, we're talking about trust and shame, and it says, Jacob shall no more be ashamed, no more shall his face grow pale.

Why? Because the Lord will display his glory, he will display his goodness through his works, and the people will trust in him as they ought. But now, he steps back and speaks once again of the people's lack of trust, and specifically the shame that they will have in trusting in Egypt.

And so the task for us today is to look at this passage and contemplate the shame that comes with trusting in one who is not the Lord, the shame that comes in trusting in something that the Lord has not provided.

Now the hope that is here for us in this passage has already been seen, it's already in that previous text, but hopefully, and considering just how great the shame is that is brought about by trusting in something else and being betrayed by something else when it is not able to save, it will drive us to see how great it is to trust in the Lord and to have that shame taken away.

Stubborn Children Who Make an Alliance Not of God's Spirit

Here in the beginning, he says, Ah, stubborn children, declares the Lord, who carry out a plan, but not mine, who make an alliance, but not of my spirit. So that word, ah, has been seen several times in Scripture.

If you're looking at some other translations, it translated woe. This ah is not just an aha or some other mark of transition, rather it's a statement of how woeful these children are who have trusted in Egypt, who have not trusted in the Lord.

God has told them that he will be sufficient for them, and yet they do not see him as sufficient. They feel that they need something else. It says that they carry out a plan, but not the Lord's plan. They make an alliance, but not of his spirit.

God has given means to his children for their victory. In this nation of Israel, he has given them an assurance that he will conquer their enemies if they just trust in him. However, they do not see this as sufficient.

Similarly, God has given us a great assurance that he rewards obedience, and that if we trust in him, then no matter what it is that we might sacrifice, no matter what it is that we think will work out better, obedience to the Lord always, always results in reward.

And moreover than that, when it comes to the most fundamental issue of where our salvation comes from, not just what we should do in any given moment, but who we will base the hope of our eternal state on, that if we do not trust in Jesus, if we trust in another, then we will be found cut off from Christ.

Galatians 5 .14 says, you are severed from Christ, you who be justified by law, you have fallen from grace. And this is what people trust in when they don't trust in Christ, is they trust in themselves, they trust in themselves and their own works and their own merit before either the true God or some God that they've made of their own devising.

And any of these things cut them off from the only source of hope that they actually have. It might seem like something more secure, but it is not. If you ever met someone who says, well, I trust in Jesus, but I also am going to do all these things just in case Jesus is not enough, or I'm also going to believe in these other gods just in case Jesus isn't enough.

I've heard people say either of those to me. It's very foolish. If you do not trust in Jesus Christ alone, then you do not trust in Jesus Christ at all, because the gospel that he offers is one where he has accomplished everything.

If you do not trust that he has done everything, you do not trust in the gospel at all. It's not that you trust in it a little bit, you don't trust at all. Now, consider historically what's going on here.

It says that they make an alliance, specifically this alliance with Egypt, and that this is not of God's spirit. He has forbidden that they make any alliances. He has forbidden in Exodus 34, 12 through 13, that they make any alliance specifically with the Canaanites.

Now, Egypt is not a Canaanite nation, but regardless, their practices of idolatry form the same kinds of concerns. God did not want the people mixing with the Canaanite nations, mixing with their idolatries, and so he does not want the people to mix with any other idolatrous nation.

Moreover, very specifically, God said in Deuteronomy 17, 16 that the people should not go back to Egypt. Deuteronomy 17, 16 says, speaking of the king, only he must not acquire many horses for himself or cause the people to return to Egypt in order to acquire many horses, since the Lord has said to you, you shall never return that way again.

They shall never return. If you're wondering about horses, yes, Egypt had many horses, and later on in this chapter it will speak of those horses, but as the king has decided that he's going to go back to Egypt, he's going to secure the might of Egypt, he is doing precisely what Scripture has said not to.

It's not just that God has given this vague principle of trusting in him and allying with other nations, he has actually given the specific prohibition against going back to Egypt, against going back to Egypt to seek strength, and that is precisely what the people are doing, that is precisely where they've landed.

The Web of Alliances and Everyday Ways We Add Sin to Sin

Now, there's something to consider for ourselves in this too, in our own day. Now, we are not a part of a nation that's a theocracy like Israel. We have not been given special prohibitions against forming alliances with other nations, because what would those, what would those prohibitions mean for us?

If we're not particularly a religious nation, then we are necessarily a nation that, like all nations of the world, is not to be identified exactly with the kingdom of heaven, and is something different than that.

Any other nation that we would form an alliance with would necessarily be of the same variety. It was only in Israel that you had this nation that was set apart from all other nations and had this command.

Yet, at the same time, there is something to note about trusting in other powers, and this is the reason why I believe many people in the world right now have such a globalist mindset. So, I'm not trying to make a direct application from what this says about alliances, but making an indirect one, given that such effort to combine powers as much as possible and centralize power as much as possible usually demonstrates a trust in human powers and a lack of trust in God.

And furthermore, it demonstrates that a lack of understanding of what the Bible says about the nature of nations to be generally opposed to the Lord, to want to centralize power among nations into larger entities and into larger alliances as much as we can, demonstrates a lack of recognition of what Scripture has said regarding the nature of human nations, that how generally they are opposed to God and how they rage against the Almighty and His anointed.

Now, the word for alliance here, you might have in your Bible a footnote, a footnote that it actually, the phrase that's really being used here is not a simple phrase that just says an alliance, but making a web, weaving a web.

God pictures these people like a spider who's weaving a web of things together. Now, a spider is capable of making a web and then knowing which parts of its web it can step on without getting stuck. A person has no ability to do that.

God has not made people this way. People, if we do such things, we will be entrapped in our own web. And so, God, warning the people, tells them not to make this web, this web that they themselves will be entrapped in.

Now, what kind of alliances do people make today? Well, if you think about it, if you think about every time the Lord offers His way and we choose our own. Now, there's the big issue of salvation, people choosing to trust in their own works.

As I said in Galatians 5 14, it says that we are severed from Christ, we would be justified by law, we have fallen from grace. There's also just in day-to-day behavior that people choose their own way rather than obedience to the Lord, trusting that their own way is going to work out better because they can't see how the Lord's way will work out.

You know, how many people end up, because they feel that they really need to get a lot done on Sunday, not worshiping with God's people, not honoring the Lord's day, but rather doing their own thing because they can't see how obeying the Lord in this one circumstance would work out.

How many people hoard their money rather than generously giving as God has commanded because they don't see how giving would work out. You know, there's no natural way that giving will work out to your benefit.

You can't analyze that from a human perspective without trusting the Lord and think that, oh yes, this will work out for me. No, it is only through recognizing that what God has said is true that you are able, that you are enabled and empowered to obey in such ways.

And the more we trust in the Lord, the more we're enabled and empowered to obey in even greater ways in following him. Now, this last phrase of this verse, that they may add sin to sin, first, once again, in the context of the people of Israel, what does this talk of?

Some would say that the answer is right here in this verse that, well, they don't trust the Lord and they do trust Egypt. So, in addition to this one sin of not trusting God, you've added this other sin of trusting someone else.

In addition to the injury, you add insult. I think this is actually referring to something else. What's more likely is that if you consider the history of what has happened here, why did the people need the help of Egypt?

Well, it's because Assyria has turned on them. Why has Assyria turned on them? Well, it's because they had made an alliance with Assyria and put Assyria in a position to turn on Israel. So, Israel did not listen to the Lord and they made an alliance with Assyria.

And now, to correct that decision, what are they going to do? They're going to make an alliance with Egypt. And so, they're adding sin to sin to sin to get out of their current situation. Now, this is like the liar that, you know, lies to cover up his lies and then lies some more to cover up those lies.

And then eventually, you get found out. You can't just keep making lies to cover up more lies, but this is what people try to do. You can't just keep sinning to cover up more sin because you will be found out.

It's like the proverbial old lady who swallowed a fly. I don't know why she swallowed a fly. You know what I'm talking about? And then she swallowed a spider. Yeah, she swallowed a spider to catch the fly, and then she swallowed something else to catch the bird.

Yeah, a bird, and then a cat, and then a dog, and so on until she swallows, like, a whole horse or something. I forget. But yeah, you can't just keep adding sin to sin. You can't just swallow a bird to catch the spider.

You can't just keep doing this. You will—it doesn't actually fix the problem. It just adds to the problem more and more and more. And how many people do this, you know? How many people get involved in a relationship they shouldn't?

This is a very common story. A Christian gets involved with an unbeliever, has a child out of wedlock, and then to make that situation better, marries the unbeliever. When Scripture has expressly prohibited that Christians marry outside of the Lord, it is commanded that we only marry inside the Lord.

In such a circumstance, what has God commanded? That you not form such a union. It doesn't matter if there was a child. That does not justify the situation. But people feel that they need to add another sin to fix this other sin.

Or consider, once again, I'd mentioned our behavior on Sundays and attending the worship of the Lord. The fourth commandment does not start off by commanding that we rest on the seventh day. It starts off by commanding that we work for six days.

Now, how many people, and not working their six days, then feel like they haven't gotten done everything they need to do, and they need to use that seventh day in order to get done the stuff they needed to do?

And so, because they sinned in that first half, they feel that they need to sin for that second half of the command. And so, people add sin to sin to sin in order to correct the situation. And if you've ever counseled somebody, even in an informal circumstance, another Christian comes to you, asks for advice, they've gotten themselves in a real mess, you know how often this is the case, that people have added sin to sin to try to fix their situation.

It never works. And it becomes increasingly difficult to deal with. You know, you try to ask the question, well, what would Jesus do? And the only answer you can think of in that moment is, he wouldn't have gotten himself in this mess in the first place.

It is important that we do not add sin to sin, that we cut it off as soon as we can, because it gets increasingly complicated and difficult. Now, just a word of warning about adding sin to sin, thinking that if there's ever a time when you think that your sin is going to help correct some former sin, know that it just won't.

Just know that it won't. It says in verse 2, who set out to go down to Egypt without asking for my direction, to take refuge in the protection of Pharaoh and to seek shelter in the shadow of Egypt. Set out to go down to Egypt.

You know, that phrase, set out, shows their determination. Go down to Egypt is a phrase that's frequently used in the first, in the first six books of the Bible, the Pentateuch and then Joshua. This phrase, going down to Egypt, describes this, describes in many of these circumstances a return to what the people had left behind.

They leave behind bondage, but they crave the leeks and onions of Egypt and want to go back, and yet they shouldn't because the Lord has called them to something better. They have done this without asking for direction.

They have done this to take protection of Pharaoh. Protection of Pharaoh. It talks about him hiding them in their shadow. You know, if you're a student of scripture, you're probably familiar with that phrase.

Speaking of the Lord, the Lord hides his people in his shadow, but here they're not satisfied with the Lord's shadow. They think Pharaoh will have a greater shadow, but God is so much bigger than Pharaoh.

God's shadow is so much greater. Psalm 91 .1 says that he who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will abide in the shadow of the Almighty. You know, if you, if you dwell where the Lord would have you to dwell, you will have his shadow.

If you seek some other shadow, you lose his, and his is far, far greater. And this goes back to a statement that was made earlier in Isaiah as well. This promise in chapter 4, it says the Lord will create over the whole site of Mount Zion and over her assemblies a cloud by day and a smoke and a shining flame of fire by night.

For over all the glory there will be a canopy. There will be a booth for shade by day from the heat and for a refuge and a shelter from the storm and rain. So you see, many times throughout Isaiah, Isaiah has been alluding back to the Exodus and talking about how the people have gone back into the same sort of bondage that they were in in Egypt.

But the Lord will save them out of this. The Lord will be their shelter. The Lord will be their shadow. And here, once again, we find that not only was Egypt just a metaphor, but they are in fact literally going back to Egypt to seek help from Egypt.

But God has given this promise that despite all this great sin, he will still be their shadow. Even though they go to Egypt for a shadow, God will redeem his people and be that shadow for them. And so how does this happen?

It happens, as we read in the previous passage, that the Lord demonstrates his work, the people realize the folly of their trust, and then they put their trust in the Lord. You know, do not delay in putting your trust in the Lord.

Do not wait to see how shameful it is to trust in other things, but rather recognize that God is offering you hope now. God is offering you a turning from your sin right now, something that results, it results in his favor, it results in his shadow.

And not that turning from sin is something that merits the favor of God as though we can earn that status in God's eyes, but rather it is in trusting in Jesus is the mechanism by which we are counted part of his family and covered.

Pharaoh's Protection Will Turn to Shame

It goes on in verse three. Therefore shall the protection of Pharaoh turn to your shame, and the shelter and the shadow of Egypt to your humiliation. For though his officials are at Zohan and his envoys reach Haines, everyone comes to through a people that cannot profit them and brings neither help nor profit, but shame and disgrace.

So, two places are mentioned here, Zohan and Haines. Haines is a short name for a place that is elsewhere called in Scripture Toppenes, and the Pharaoh that existed at this time is one who at least in a superficial sense had united these two areas.

So, there are these two areas of Egypt where you imagine the envoys going to both of them trying to get help from both of these places, that you have the full might of Egypt at your disposal. But even though they have done this, people will come to shame.

In fact, it's not just that the Lord knows that the people will not, that Egypt will not profit them, it's even the case that Assyria knows that Egypt will not profit them. You see later on Assyria comes and calls Egypt a broken reed.

It is aware that Egypt is not enough. It's not merely here that God and His sovereignty and because His power knows that this will not work out for them. Rather, it is obvious from the face of it that it will not work out.

And that is how sin so often works, that we, because of our desperation and our blindness, think that things will work out. But even from an objective perspective, standing outside, even without having eyes of faith often, it is clear just how foolish it would be to trust in such a thing.

You know, just consider all the religions of the world. Now, most people can look at these religions and see how foolish it is to stand in front of a stone god and pray to it or to hope that you will be reincarnated when there is nothing that says that this would be the case.

No god even that has given revelation that this would be the case, and yet people believe it. And people put their hope in things like this while at the same time believing that there's no such thing as one's self.

They hope for some kind of salvation of their self, but they don't even believe in a self. It's amazing the different kinds of things world religions will believe. And I say this just to illustrate how often it is often the case that we trust in something because we don't have eyes of faith, but it's often the case, too, that we trust in something because we're even blind from a worldly standard.

That is often where our sin puts us, with such desperation and such blindness that even another unregenerate person can look at the situation and tell how foolish it is. And this is what the people are doing, going to Pharaoh.

And so three times in this passage, it is mentioned shamed. It says, everyone comes to shame. It brings neither help nor profit, but shame and disgrace. And before, it had spoken of shame as well. Now, how are these things gotten rid of?

How is shame taken away? In the previous chapter, Jacob shall no more be ashamed, no more shall his face grow pale, for when he sees his children, the work of my hands in his midst, they will sanctify his name, or excuse me, they will sanctify my name.

They will sanctify the Holy One of Jacob and will stand in awe of the God of Israel, and those who go astray in spirit will come to understanding, and those who murmur will accept instruction. The way that we are changed is by seeing the work of God.

It's by God working in our hearts and transforming us that we can see how great He is and what He is doing, and by that, be changed so that we stand in awe of Him and accept instruction. Do not continue in folly.

See what God is doing today. He is doing a marvelous work. He is changing lives. Talk to, you know, any of the other brothers around here, brothers or sisters. God has worked in their life. He works in the lives of those who trust Him.

Do not continue on in folly. That only leads to shame. Shame occurs when someone relies on something and it betrays them and it fails them, but one is not ashamed who trusts in something secure. That's why Romans 1 16, Paul can say, I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation.

Now, it might appear shameful in this life because it might appear that it won't work out to a world who does not believe in God, to a world who does not believe in Jesus Christ, but it is something that ultimately does not result in shame.

Hebrews 12 2 says that even Christ was willing to endure the shame for the joy that was set before Him. Ultimately, even if during that short period there was shame, ultimately is a life without shame.

But, but if you trust in the things of this world, if you trust in yourself and your own measures and add sin to sin, you will have nothing but shame and shame and shame. If you do not trust in Christ, you will have an eternal shame.

But if you trust in the Lord, if you trust in the Lord, all that shame can be taken away because God is a God who works wonders and instructs even those who murmur, who otherwise did not know Him and did not know what He was capable of, but He is capable.

There's no need to trust in the shadow of Pharaoh and the shadow of any worldly power and the shadow of any nation and the shadow of, of even yourself. Only trust in the shadow of the Lord. Let us pray.

Dear Heavenly Father, we thank You for Your promises. We thank You that You are a great and almighty God who can defeat any enemy and that You have already defeated sin and death through the power of Jesus Christ.

And God, we pray that You would, that You would lead us to trust You today, that we would not trust in ourselves, that we would not trust in any worldly power, but that we would only trust in You and that we would be led away from the, from the shame of trusting in another.

In Jesus' name, amen. Please be with us.