Isaiah 30

Hi Friendly People,
     What I've written today has been difficult because the reality of its truth frightens me. If God were to look at the church in the United States as He did Sodom and Gomorrah would He find many righteous? People who take correction from Him? People who aren't looking back at Egypt when things get hard?  God is so merciful to give us warnings and chances to repent; will we listen?  
     
Isaiah 30
V1 "Woe to the obstinate children" declares the Lord, "to those who carry out plans that are not Mine, forming an alliance, but not by my Spirit, heaping sin upon sin;
V2 "who go down to Egypt [a place of bondage]without consulting me; who look for help to Pharaoh's protection, to Egypt's shade for refuge."


2Kings 18:21 Look now, you are depending on Egypt, that splintered reed of a staff, which pierces a man's hand and wounds him if he leans on it! Such is Pharaoh king of Egypt to all who depend on him.



Psalms 91:1 He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty. 

V3 But Pharaoh's protection will be to your shame, Egypt's shade will bring you disgrace. Though they have officials in Zoan and their envoys have arrived in Hanes,


Zoan: where Israelites once served as slaves.


V5 everyone will be put to shame because of a people useless to them who bring neither help nor advantage, but only shame and disgrace.
V6 Through a land of hardship and distress of lions and lionesses, of adders and darting snakes, the envoys carry their riches on donkeys backs, their treasures on the humps of camels, to that unprofitable nation,
V7 to Egypt , whose help is utterly useless. Therefore I call her Rahab the Do-Nothing.


Rahab: a mythical sea monster, here symbolic of Egypt. The name itself means storm and arrogance.


Isaiah 27:1 In that day the Lord will punish with His sword His fierce great and powerful sword, Leviathan the gliding serpent , Leviathan the coiling serpent: He will slay the monster of the sea.


V8 Go now, write it on a tablet for them, inscribe it on a scroll, that for the days to come it may be an everlasting witness.
V9 These are rebellious people, deceitful children, children unwilling to listen to the Lord's instruction.
V10 They say to the seers, "See no more visions!"
and to the prophets, "give us no more visions of what is right!
"Tell us pleasant things, prophesy illusions.
V11 "Leave this way, get off this path, and stop confronting us with the Holy One of Israel!"  
V12 Therefore, this is what the Holy One of Israel says:"Because you have rejected this message, relied on oppression and depended on deceit, 
V13 this sin will become for you like a high wall, cracked and bulging, that collapses suddenly, in an instant.
V14 It will break in pieces like pottery, shattered so mercilessly that among its pieces not a fragment will be found for taking coals from a hearth or scooping water out of a cistern"
V15 This is what the Sovereign Lord, the Holy One of Israel, says:


"In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your  strength,
but you would have none of it.


V16 "You said, 'No, we will flee on horses.' Therefore you will flee!
"You said, 'We will ride off on swift horses.' Therefore your pursuers will be swift!"

V17 A thousand will flee at the threat of one; at the threat of five you will all flee away, till you are left like a flagstaff on a mountaintop, like a banner on a hill.


V18 Yet the Lord longs to be gracious to you;
He rises to show you compassion. 
For the Lord is a God of justice.
Blessed are all who wait for Him!
V19 O people of Zion, who live in Jerusalem, you will weep no more. How gracious He will be when you cry for help! As soon as He hears,  He will answer you.


V20 Although the Lord gives you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, your teachers will be hidden no more; with your own eyes you will see them.
V21 Whether you turn to the right or the the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying , "This is the way; walk in it."
V22 Then you will defile your idols overlaid with silver and your images covered with gold; you will throw them away like a menstrual cloth and say to them, "Away with you!"


 O God, Merciful and Just, "We ask Your forgiveness and choose this day to put You in Your rightful place as our King the only true Protector and Provider. We will no longer run back to those places you have delivered us from. We will call to You for our help and not depend on the Pharaoh's of our land. We look to you for our peace and strength. We will honor Your voice in our lives and listen to Your correction. We will open our ears to Your instruction, we want to hear Your teachers, we want to hear the truth even when it hurts. We humbly ask You to tell us which way to go. You alone give us the power to give up our Idols and we ask You for Your help. Be our shade, our King, The Holy One of Israel. Amen. 






                    Never give up! Never give in!