Isaiah 19


Isaiah 19:23-24 (ESV)
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,

Most of chapter 19 talks about the judgment God is sending against Egypt. Their rivers will be dried up. Their crops will die. Their gods will not answer. Their fishermen will have no catch. Their leaders and wise counselors will fail them. That is the description of most of the chapter. “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” (Isaiah 19:14-15a). But…

With God there is often a “But…” But, “In that day there will be an altar to the LORD in the midst of the land of Egypt, and a pillar to the LORD at its border” (Isaiah 19:19). From Assyria to Egypt people will fear the LORD. God will take the enemies of Israel and turn them into allies who honor their God. God has a way of bringing people to the end of themselves. All our hopes, all our dreams, all our plans and expectations come to nothing when our hope is in someone or something other than God. He will not share his glory.

The glory of the nations will crumble. Borders will change. Alliances and allegiances will be altered. Nations will rise and fall. But God is always God. His word is unchanging. Everything the Egyptians put their hope in will fail them. Their natural resources, their great civilization, their wisdom, and their religion will all fail them. But God has higher plans. They will ultimately honor and glorify the very God they opposed and ignored.

This should cause me to consider the question: What have I put my hope in? Am I hoping in the government? Am I trusting in a religious system? Am I relying on friends and family? Is my hope in my business savvy, or my ability to work hard? All of that can disappear in a heartbeat. God will not share his glory. None of those things are bad. Governments rise and fall at the will and sovereign direction of God. Religion, if grounded in Christ, is a good thing. Good business practices, a willingness to work hard, and a circle of trusted friends are all gifts from God. But when we make that slight shift from gratitude to God for all we have, to trusting in what we have, we are on dangerous ground.

I am reminded of the old hymn written by Edward Mote back in the early 1800s.

My hope is built on nothing less
than Jesus' blood and righteousness.
I dare not trust the sweetest frame,
but wholly lean on Jesus' name.

On Christ the solid rock I stand,
all other ground is sinking sand;
all other ground is sinking sand.

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