Isaiah Lesson 27

Welcome, let's go to the Lord in prayer. So Lord, thank you so much for the opportunity to break bread again in your presence. Lord, we know that in your presence, there is fullness of joy. We pray that your joy would be with us, that we could open your word and get glimpses of you.

Lord, we thank you for how you have spoken into this world with special revelation that we could not know apart from your word. So we value your word more than anything else in life. God, we need to hear from you.

Speak, Lord, your servants are listening. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. Okay, the city of Damascus has a storied history. Damascus was settled thousands of years before Christ. At the time of the Assyrian invasion, Damascus was a prominent city.

And they joined an alliance with Israel to the north. So together, they actually were able to resist Assyria as it was rising. The Battle of Karkar in 853 BC actually saw Damascus and northern Israel, so Samaria and the northern kingdom of the 10 tribes, withstand an Assyrian assault.

They won that battle and they were not overthrown. But in the 700s, Assyria does come and conquer, which is what we're going to see pictured today in Isaiah 17. After this, there will be a time where it's just a period of ruins, where the city is in ruins.

But they will regather, and to this day now, Damascus is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities on earth. In fact, if you had to pick one city in which to live on earth, according to the Guinness Book of World Records in 2019, the least livable city in the world right now is Damascus, Syria.

And why would that be? Well, there's been a civil war going on there since 2011, and Damascus is the capital of Assyria. There was an opportunity for freedom fighters, I think, to step in and overthrow Bashar Assad's regime, but the administration in 2012, Barack Obama, did not support the freedom fighters the way he had promised to.

And his red line that can't be crossed turned out not to be a red line, because when crossed, he didn't back it up. And in any case, the point is, it has been in civil war to this day, and is currently ranked the least livable city in the world.

It was a Muslim city for much of its history, but before Muhammad conquered, Muhammad sent a message to Damascus, saying, peace be upon him who follows true guidance. Be informed that my religion shall prevail everywhere.

You should accept Islam, and whatever under your command shall remain yours. Well, that leader of Damascus at the time did not accept that charge, and so Islam conquered by the edge of the sword, and in the 760s, became a Muslim city, and it remained a Muslim city for all of these years.

In 1918, there was a massive shift, however. Of course, 1918 was World War I, and that dramatic change happened when the French came in and occupied the city, because of course, the Muslim world had sided with the central powers, and was basically in league with Germany at that time, so the French took over in 1918, and from 1918 until 1946, it was basically an occupied French territory.

In 1946, the French withdrew after World War II, so you see how these wars can just completely shift the political structures of the earth, and they became a full independent Syria in 1946 with Damascus as the capital, so that's where it is today, so why don't we go back into the word of God and see what the word of God said about this particular place.

The Oracle Concerning Damascus and the Judgment on Ephraim

The table of judgments, we are in Isaiah chapter 17. We begin reading, an oracle concerning Damascus. Behold, Damascus will cease to be a city, and will become a heap of ruins. The cities of Aurore are deserted.

They will be for flocks, which will lie down, and none will make them afraid. The fortress will disappear from Ephraim, and the kingdom from Damascus, and the remnant of Syria will be like the glory of the children of Israel, declares the Lord of Hosts.

Okay, so the big idea we see right away in chapter 17. There has been a wedding, an unholy alliance, an unequal yoking between Israel, the northern 10 tribes, and this kingdom of Syria, this pagan nation that does not worship the God of Israel, and Israel, who is now divided from the southern kingdom, and has had nothing but wicked kings, they enter into an unholy alliance.

And so, because of that, Damascus and Israel will be judged concurrently. So what we're going to see in the first three verses is a commingling of judgment that corresponds to this alliance. Remember, the great threat at that time was the Assyrian Empire.

That's not Syria, that's us, Syria. So coming way from the lands off to the east, the Euphrates River, Tigris and Euphrates River, you have this Assyrian people that is beginning to take over the world.

It's an empire, the first world-dominating empire. That's the great threat. In the Battle of Karkar, Israel and Damascus were able to hold them off, but not forever. They will get wiped out. So look at the judgment that is coming, and notice the commingling.

Ephraim, of course, is the northern tribe of Israel. And it speaks to all of the tribes kind of metonymously. It's speaking to the whole of Israel. And Damascus is the capital of Syria. Remember in Isaiah chapter seven and nine, we saw that Ephraim was in league with Damascus, and God sent a prophecy through Isaiah that before Isaiah's son could say mommy or daddy, that this alliance would be broken up.

So the southern kingdom didn't need to fear this alliance because God was gonna judge it. How was he gonna judge it? The Assyrians. The Assyrians are gonna wipe them out. So here we have that. We have the wiping out of Damascus to the point where it will be utter ruins, but notice that commingled in that judgment on Damascus is a judgment on the ones who yoked themselves.

So they're put together in verses one to three. Notice this. Behold, Damascus will cease to be a city and will become a heap of ruins. The cities of Arur are deserted. Another Syrian city will be for flocks, which will lie down and none will make them afraid.

Now notice the commingling here. Verse three. The fortress will disappear from Ephraim. Now Ephraim is being judged right in connection with this woe. What is an oracle in verse one? What's that? It's a prophecy, but specifically, what does it mean?

We talked about this back in chapter 13. It's not so much a warning because there's nothing they can do about it. It's a sealed judgment. It is a burden. It's a heavy burden on the prophet. It makes his heart sick.

He carries this. It weighs on him like a heavy backpack. Destruction is coming. It's coming and there's really nothing they can do at this point. It's decreed. The fortress will disappear from Ephraim.

The northern kingdom will fall to Assyria. Anybody know what year this happens? 722, 721. Yeah, the kingdom from Damascus and the remnant of Syria will be like the glory of the children of Israel. Now by glory there, this means a departing glory, an Ichabod, the glory departing.

And that's how it will be for Damascus. What seemed to be even strong enough to resist Assyria, nope, they're going down and they're going down together. So what I wanted you to notice in verse three is Ephraim and Damascus are being treated together in judgment.

They went in alliance and now they stood together and now they fall together. And the application at the end is going to be that we need to be careful with the alliances we make. Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers.

That's marriage. Churches, what church you join. All manners of outreach that we choose to do and various things that we yoke ourselves together with others. For example, our church was offered the opportunity to take probably more than $30 ,000 in March of last year.

But after a lot of prayer, we said no to the PPP funds. Why? Because of the yoke that could come with it. And they were saying there won't be, but now as the Equality Act comes down the pike, churches that took that money have a yoke that I think makes them more susceptible to whatever the government dictates with the Equality Act.

So being careful with the yoking. Here you have Syria and Israel were in a yoke and the yoke held them together when they were crushed in judgment. Verse four and five. In that day, the glory of Jacob will be brought low.

So this is not about glory. It's about the loss of glory. It's the Ichabod, the departing of this glory and the fat of his flesh will grow lean. This might be a picture of like consumption, a disease where a person is slowly wasting away.

That's how Matthew Henry describes it. He said, Israel died of a lingering disease. The 10 tribes wasted gradually. From Ahab all the way down through the kings of Israel, it was a progression and constant wasting away.

It was 20 some kings in Northern Israel. So it didn't just happen overnight, but eventually when Israel fell, it was a decisive blow. In that day, the glory of Jacob will be brought low. The fat of his flesh will grow lean and it shall be as when the reaper gathers standing grain and his arm harvest the ears and as when one gleans the ears of grain in the valley of refrain.

So this is a picture of harvesting and the plants just being stripped of all their produce, which in the metaphor is a picture of judgment or mercy. Clearly judgment. They're being reaped like a harvest.

You know, as you see in Revelation, you have that same imagery of the sickle that the Lord swings and it's judgment on the nation. Assyria is taking, oh yeah, yeah, just taking it and ransacking. Now again, one of the glorious things about God's economy and his plan is that in his wrath, he remembers mercy.

Habakkuk 3 .2, Habakkuk will pray, oh Lord, I have heard the report of you and your work, oh Lord, do I fear. In the midst of the years, revive it. In the midst of the years, make it known. In wrath, remember mercy.

And here in verses six to eight, would somebody read for me? There is a picture of a very small remnant that comes from Israel. Yes. Yeah, would you like to read that, Rich, nice and loud? Yes. Okay, so in the imagery here, you have a tree shaken of all of its fruit, right?

And it's been picked clean, but I don't know if any of you have ever gone picking at like Johnson's Farm. Once you're kind of coming in at the end of the picking season, you get on that little, you know, hayride and you get to the thing, you're like, oh man, there's like hardly anything left here.

Your kids are just looking and they're all withered and terrible, but still way up at the top of the tree, there's a few. And we can get those because dad is six foot four. So Timmy goes on top or even sometimes Abby, and there's still a chance to get the last couple.

You see the picture here? Look at verse six. With Abby on top of six foot four dad, there's still a few left in the branches way up high. Gleanings will be left in it. Two or three berries, not much of a harvest left, right?

Two or three berries in the top of the highest bough. Four or five on the branches of a fruit tree, declares the Lord God of Israel. Now in his wrath, he is remembering mercy. There is always a remnant.

And the promise to Israel, remember Genesis 12, one to three? The Abrahamic covenant, he would bless Israel. And through Israel, all the nations will be blessed. So there will be some blessing to Damascus, some blessing to Israel.

There will still be a remnant, even in this great judgment. This wicked nation will be spared through a remnant, a very small remnant here, just a slight gleaning that's left. In that day, God will look.

In that day, man will look to his maker. This is a good thing, right? To look to your maker. His eyes will look on the Holy One of Israel. Maybe that's even a picture of the incarnation there, where Jesus was seen in the flesh.

He will not look to the altars, the work of his hands, and he will not look on what his own fingers have made, either the Asherim or the altars of incense. Now in the Northern Kingdom, they still had altars of incense, even though offered not in Jerusalem where they should have, but they were worshiping Yahweh, commingled with the false gods and the pagan religion.

Paul was called Saul of Tarsus. And in his religious hypocrisy, he was striving to obey the Ten Commandments, but rejecting the one upon whom God sent. He should look upon the maker. However, he rejected that.

Yet, on the road to Damascus, a light shone from heaven, and his eyes were at first blinded, and he was brought to a place of humbling. Damascus pictures a place of humbling, there for days of repentance, as he takes inventory of his life and recognizes he's been opposing the Holy One of Israel.

And then comes a man named Ananias, and like scales falling from his eyes, as Ananias lays hands and says, "'Receive your sight, the Lord Jesus heals you.'". In that moment, his eyes are opened, and there in Damascus, he preaches for the first time, and a remnant comes forth, like fruit still left in the tree when it looked like it was completely reaped.

There is a picture of hope here, and I see in this, Paul, beginning to preach the gospel. Damascus will have some, and Israel will have a remnant as well, according to the promise. All right, verses nine to 11.

In that day, their strong cities will be like the deserted places of the wooded heights and the hilltops, which they deserted because of the children of Israel, and there will be desolation. Now, pause right there.

When were the hills of northern Israel deserted because of the children of Israel? When they were given the promised land. When Israel came in, and under the sword of Joshua, chased the people out of the land, they ran off the Canaanites, and there they took hold and possession.

The book of Judges, they take more and more of the territory. They're chasing off the people. Now, look at verse nine. Their strong cities will be like the deserted places. They're the ones that are fleeing the sword.

They were given the promised land. Now God is chastising them, chasing them out by a foreign people. For you have forgotten the God of your salvation, and have not remembered the rock of your refuge. Therefore, though you plant pleasant plants and sow the vine branch of a stranger, though you will make them grow on the day that you plant them and make them blossom in the morning that you sow, yet the harvest will flee away in a day of grief and incurable pain.

When Isaiah is prophesying the fall, they feel themselves secure, so much so that Damascus and the north are planning the onslaught of the south. Remember that? But it's within three years, they themselves are going to be struck.

Now this strike, notice the word incurable, verse 11. This is an incurable strike. They will be utterly ruined. And it happens that when Assyria comes in, they wreck Damascus, they wreck the north, and they actually leave their people, take others into captivity, intermarry, and Israel will not reemerge as a people.

They are utterly, utterly, incurably fleeing from the Assyrian. That's the harvest that flees away. It's very sad. It's a picture of utter destruction. Now, will there be a remnant? Yeah. Is that called the Samaritans?

Yes, that's who this, yeah, the Samaritans are the intermarrying there of the Assyrians and the people that were left in the land. Yes. And why did the Assyrians do that? To break down the culture of the people that they're displacing.

Yeah, last week, right. Yep, that's the point of what they do. So verses 12 through 14. Ah, that word is, it's not precisely, there's earlier we see the word woe, but it's just like a noticing like, ah, wow, this is remarkable.

The thunder. I mean, this is like, it makes your mouth drop kind of moment. And what is the thunder of many peoples? It is the coming of the Assyrian army, remembering that the Assyrian army is multi-ethnic.

It's intentionally multi-ethnic. It's gathered many peoples together. This is now the first worldwide empire. As they've conquered lands, they've assimilated the people and they've brought them into the army.

Babylon will be the next great empire. Then the Medo-Persians and then the Greeks and then the Romans. So this is now the rise of multi-ethnic empires. It's the thunder of many peoples. And that's not been seen before in the world to this degree.

They thunder like the thundering of the sea. We're talking a great multitude. The roar of nations. They roar like the roaring of mighty waters. That's intimidating. The nations roar like the roaring of many waters, but he will rebuke them.

Now, the one that God wields as an instrument of judgment, we learned about this in chapter 10, right? Now the turning of the tides, they themselves will be judged, right? Remember that from Isaiah 10?

Assyria is a sword that God uses to conquer, but he does not so intend in his heart and God will turn and judge Assyria. He will rebuke them and they will flee far away. God is the one that makes nations rise and he makes them fall.

Chase like chaff on the mountains before the wind and whirling dust before the storm. At evening time, behold, terror. Before morning, they are no more. This is the portion of those who loot us and the lot of those who plunder us.

Is God right to judge Assyria when he's the one that sent them? How so? How can he judge the instrument of his own wrath? Well, I don't know that they went beyond. I think he sends them to turn fortified cities into piles of stone.

There you go, that's the right answer. It's not that they went beyond because there's no language of that in the text. The language in Isaiah 10 and then later in Isaiah 30, he does not so intend in his heart.

Right, so this is that teaching of compatibilism that a person operating in their own motives and for their own reason is still responsible. They're the ones responsible for their own sin. Yes, yes, absolutely.

They've done this everywhere. And that's why they think that they're so powerful. Like, look, we wrecked the Lebanese gods and the Moabite gods and whoever withstood us, these local deities as they see them, we've wrecked them and we have power over them.

That's how they think. And they think Yahweh is just like one of these local deities, which are no gods at all. Yeah, so they're going out with their intention is to dominate and to kill and destroy. And they're guilty for that.

And therefore they will be judged, even though it's God that is doing this through them like an instrument in his hand, the rod of his judgment. Yeah, and the first statement of that in Exodus is that I will harden his heart.

Yeah, and who's ultimately responsible for sin? The sinner. God holds the sinner responsible for sin. Yes, even if he's using that sinfulness for his purpose. Yeah, yeah, yes, right on the threshold. Yep, very good, yeah.

And the Ark, that's what's so amazing is that God didn't even need his army. All that was left was the Ark versus Dagon. And the Ark began to wreck the people too with disease and wasting disease until finally they sent it away.

Hemorrhoids. Yeah, hemorrhoids, okay, all right. So Psalm 76, verse five and six says, the stout-hearted were stripped of their spoil. They sank into sleep. All the men of war were unable to use their hands.

At your rebuke, O God, of Jacob, both rider and horse lay stunned. They came in with a roar. And all of a sudden they fall asleep. What does that speak to? Later in Isaiah 30s, and also we read about it in the Kings and Chronicles.

They came in with a roar, then they fall asleep. And in the night, an angel of the Lord will go forth and destroy 185 ,000. 3736? Isaiah 3736. Oh, you know the call number there. All right, so in Isaiah 3736, this angel of the Lord.

Well, look at this. The nations roar, but look at verse 14. At evening time, behold terror. Before morning, they are no more. Isn't that amazing? The judgment that God, God can wipe them out in a night.

Just completely silenced this, wow, kind of roar. Yeah, so the same power that raised Jesus from the dead lives in us. And yet how often do we turn to earthly means to solve our problems? Compromising, thinking, you know, I've got to take this matter into my own hands.

Trying to form alliances or work things out when we have the same power that raised Jesus from the dead. The power that can conquer the Assyrian army in a night. As powerful as that army looks, and in the earthly, in the physical, looking with earthly minds, the Israelites thought we have no choice.

Fine, let's join up with Damascus. The problem is they formed an ungodly alliance. Okay, turn with me to 18. They're gonna be proposed another alliance. Ah, the land of whirring wings that is beyond the rivers of Cush, which sends ambassadors by the sea in vessels of papyrus on the waters.

Go, you swift messengers, to a nation tall and smooth, to a people feared near and far, a nation mighty and conquering, whose land the rivers divide. This has caused a little bit of division among commentators as to who this is.

Matthew Henry saw this as another picture of the Assyrians, but most commentators, and I think it's right, follow this more literally as the Ethiopians, because look at the word Cush. That is a known people.

We see in Genesis chapter 10, verses six and seven. Shem, Ham, Japheth. Ham has sons named Mizraim and Put and Cush. We know where these places are. Mizraim is Egypt. Put is the northern Moroccan kind of part of Africa.

What's that? It would include Libya. In fact, Simon of Cyrene, remember, who helped carry the cross of Jesus? Cyrene is northern Africa. That's Put. So he was African from that part of the world. Mizraim is Egypt, okay?

And here we have Cush. This is the area south of Egypt all the way down to Ethiopia. And the land of the rivers refers to that particular splitting of those rivers. So we have then them coming up from Cush, probably sailing up the Red Sea into the Mediterranean, swinging around to where the war is happening.

Why would Cush send ambassadors? Because if the Israeli-Syrian alliance, which once defeated Assyria in the Battle of Karkar, if that falls now, there's no stopping the Assyrians. See, they have self-interest here.

They're like, you know what? Why don't we just send up our ambassadors? We'll join an alliance to help you fight off Assyria. Good idea for Israel? Hey, it's more allies, right? That's the temptation here, to trust in these alliances that they're forming.

Yeah, they're allies. There's other language in the Bible where it's like you're leaning on a reed that's gonna fall or it's gonna pierce your hand. You know, it's not wise. So, ah, land of whirring wings that is beyond the rivers of Cush.

In Jeremiah chapter 13, verse 23, we read, can a leopard change his spots or an Ethiopian the color of his skin? Remember reading that at some point? If you actually look at the Hebrew behind Ethiopian in that language, in Hebrew, it is Cushi.

I wonder if that's Cush. Yeah, of course it is, it's Cush. So basically, there is biblically a parallel between Ethiopia, that northern part of Ethiopia, where the rivers divide, and the Ethiopian people.

A dark-skinned people. Interesting, what's that? Yes, describing sub-Saharan Africa. And then I think what we're gonna see is it goes even beyond just, because Cush is the direction that the sons of Ham went.

Cush to the south of Egypt. You have Mizraim and you have Put to the northern Africa. So it would push beyond just Ethiopia itself to that entire region. And really, I think going into sub-Saharan Africa, which is gonna be interesting at verse seven.

So look at verse three. All you inhabitants of the world, you who dwell on the earth, when a signal is raised on the mountains, look. When a trumpet is blown, hear. For thus the Lord said to me, I will quietly look from my dwelling like clear heat in sunshine, like a cloud of dew in the heat of harvest.

For before the harvest, when the blossom is over and the flower becomes a ripening grape, watch this, he cuts off the shoots with pruning hooks and the spreading branches he lops off and clears away. They shall all of them be left to the birds of prey of the mountains and to the beasts of the earth.

And the birds of prey will summer on them and all the beasts of the earth will winter on them. Okay, take those verses in context. Judgment or mercy? Judgment, clearly. Cut off into a pile. But here you have a picture of God patiently watching and waiting.

Like when one watches the summer heat. So you have the, almost like the heat, have you ever seen heat waves kind of rising in the sun? And this could be withering to the plant if it's too much, right?

God is just watching this, but ultimately what's gonna come of this crop? It's being cut off. It's ripening for judgment. So your deliverance will not come from Cush. This will not be your rescue. God is the one patiently watching and there's judgment coming, but now kind of in conclusion here beautifully, Cush has a tribute to bring.

At that time, tribute will be brought to the Lord of hosts from a people tall and smooth, from a people feared near and far, a nation mighty and conquering whose land the rivers divide. Again, the parallel language, look at verse one and two actually.

This is the same language used to describe Cush, right? So he's picturing Cush, a people tall and smooth, same language, a people feared near and far, a mighty nation conquering whose land the rivers divide.

So it even relocates again that we're talking about South of Egypt, Sub-Sahara, and they're going to do what? Bring tribute to Mount Zion. At that time, in other words, when God calls for it in his timing, not when Israel calls for help or an alliances form, there's actually no record that that alliance was ever formed, either in the Bible or in secular history.

According to the commentaries, they can't find that it ever happened. It looks like it was probably just rejected or withdrawn or it looked like it wasn't going to happen, so Cush just retreated. In any case, it wasn't time, but there's coming a day.

In Zechariah 14, 16, during the millennial kingdom, all the nations bring tribute to Jerusalem and they celebrate the Feast of Booths there. Now, interestingly, when you look at the landscape of the world, there was a period of time where Europe was the center of reformation and Geneva was the place where people came to learn the reformed faith, which was the biblical Pauline testimony.

And the gospel went out to the Huguenots in France and up through John Knox to Scotland and all the way up through Cranmer and the reformers in England. And then there's all of this expansion of the gospel from Europe for hundreds of years.

But then, in the train of that, Europe apostatizes from the faith. And where the gospel then came to the new world and that became the sending to all the nations as missionaries were sent from America and Scotland more than any other place per capita.

Now, Scotland is even darker than the rest of Europe. It is completely neo-Marxist. America is experiencing a very similar direction. But I will tell you this, there is hope in Cush as a center of this century's reformation.

Sub-Sahara, Zambia, Vodibaka moved there about five years ago and formed African Christian University. And there is an organic reform Baptist movement through that university and spreading all throughout Sub-Saharan Africa.

When the Anglicans and the United Methodists tried to push liberal theology on the denomination, the only thing that rescued it was Cush, was South Africa. Not South Africa as a country, but the region southern of Egypt.

These countries rejected that. And there is a conservatism and there is hope that until Christ comes, that this will be the center of missionary outreach. A tribute brought. Now, I don't know if this verse refers only to the millennium because we know in the millennium, all nations will be worshiping and sending representatives and bringing tribute to Jerusalem, to Mount Zion.

But even before that, I see rumblings that God is at work in Cush. And I see in verse seven, at that time tribute will be brought. There was a eunuch from Cush, an Ethiopian who traveled to Jerusalem in Acts chapter eight.

And he opened the Bible and began to read from Isaiah 53, but he didn't understand what he was reading until Philip said, do you understand what you're reading? No, how can I, unless someone explains it to me.

And up onto the chariot, Philip goes. And from there preaches Christ through Isaiah 53. He sees water, what keeps me from being baptized? He's baptized and boom, Philip is off to a Zotus. And where does that Ethiopian go?

Back to Cush, back home, presumably seeding the soil with gospel witness. And then in the last couple hundred years, this is where the gospel has taken root more than anywhere else. Now there needs to be growth in a number of areas.

There's been an export from America of prosperity theology, which I think is beginning to wane there, although it seemed to dominate. Fortunately, now you see a stronger reformation in Cush. So it's just really amazing to watch how this all comes together.

In closing, how do we make application to the story of Damascus and Cush? I was gonna say, but you can answer. It was more rhetorical, but yeah. Well, I think this does speak to the Assyrian onslaught, meaning it was wrecked in that judgment.

Well, I think the language of the text, and there could be someone who would disagree with this, but it says, behold, Damascus will cease to be a city and will become a heap of ruins. I think that happened when Assyria wiped them out as a people, completely ruined them, and then reseated it with a people that's kind of a new Assyrian people.

In the same way that you had Babylon, when John taught on Babylon, remember, they would be completely ruined and cease to be a city. But then the Assyrians reseated it as a new people. Remember, Sennacherib came?

Yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah. And it's not precluding the Lord from coming back, but yeah, I think this language of judgment refers to the Assyrian invasion as Assyria first conquers Babylon, and then Moab we saw last week, and then coming around here and then going down, yeah.

Yeah, immediate and latter, right, right, right. It still exists. In fact, it's one of the oldest existing cities in the world. Yeah, but I think that the language of verses one and two is referring to their completely being ruined as a people, and then they'll be reborn as an Assyrian outpost for all those years, and then just conquer, and they get changed over and over.

They become a Muslim city. They were a Christian city for a period of time. In fact, even in the 1800s, it wasn't a genuine evangelical Christianity, but there was 30 ,000 Christians in the 1800s, and 100 ,000 Muslims, and 10 ,000 Jews, so it was kind of the ethnic makeup.

What's that? Orthodox. Yeah, it's an Orthodox faith, yep, yep. Yep, the Miriamite or something like that. There's a number of different Orthodox religions that claim Damascus as their head, so yeah. So anyway, how do we make kind of broad application to our lives?

We must be careful with the alliances we form. Damascus is one that they did form. Cush came up and sent ambassadors to offer an alliance. We must teach our young people, I don't know if anybody's here at marriageable age, you're looking to get married, maybe some of you are, don't marry an unbeliever.

Don't be yoked together. Often people do that because you're thinking to yourself, you know what, he loves me, I can convert him. It's like missionary dating, I can convert her, but it's a clear teaching in the New Testament.

Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. How else, guys, could we form ungodly yokings? I would say be careful with the business yoking. Now, we have to be in the world, not of it. In the business world, every economic transaction you make, in some sense, when you go to ShopRite to buy from them, you're making a transaction, so it's not forming a yoke, per se.

So you can form business relationships, but like what you said, I would be very careful like forming a partnership. If you're gonna create a business and have a partner where his morality is what's going to be required for this thing to work, if they're not a believer, that's probably an unwise move to yoke yourself that way.

Yeah, I would agree with that. It can be, you have to be so wise, yeah. Yeah, there's no doubt there. Okay, would you guys go to the abortion clinic with Catholics and preach the gospel in unison with them?

With Catholics? You would do it? Okay, I would never do it because the person that I'm preaching next to. Yeah, exactly, and in fact, often when you get into the alliance, it depends on which group you're talking about, but if you get into this alliance, they make an agreement not to preach the gospel.

All we're gonna do is work together for this common end, but I can't empty my ministry of the gospel. That's the only hope I have to offer to that woman in calling out to her, do not kill your baby. It's in the name of Jesus and saying, Christ.

They all agree with it. Yeah. Yeah, right. So there's different ideas on this. Apology of Church and End Abortion Now and the Love Life Ministry out of Charlotte and myself all agree that you should not yoke together with Catholics in the abortion ministry.

Now, let God hopefully use them, however, in the righteous cause of trying to end abortion, but when we yoke ourselves in a ministry, now we've created an unholy alliance. If you make an agreement, another example would be like this.

They have these Christian peacemaker teams that fly into like Baghdad or something and try to plead for peace, but in order to sign up to go on a Christian peacemaker team you have to agree to not proselytize.

Can't do it. Why are you going? Why are you going? Yeah, they're just trying to plead for peace and like pacifism and all that kind of stuff. It's a liberal kind of agenda rather than keeping the gospel always at the forefront.

We have to be careful with these alliances. There you go. Yeah, go and proselytize. Not proselytize, that's not a good word. Evangelize the Catholics. Right? Well, good. All right, then you're forgiven for that.

Yes. Yes, ecumenism, right, right, right, right. Yeah. Right. Yeah, I'd say it's an unhelpful yoking, even in that. So there's differences in the movement, but I prefer, yeah, that's good. And I think John Grove is connected with Love Life because I just saw him a few weeks ago and he said that he is, but Love Life does not use the grotesque images.