Scripture text today is a long one, so you do not have to stand up for it, because it's going to be two chapters. One chapter is very short. So turn to Jeremiah 45 and 46. We're coming to the last part of the book of Jeremiah, and it is a great one. Jeremiah 45 and 46. This is the message which Jeremiah the prophet spoke to Baruch the son of Neriah when he had written down these words in a book at Jeremiah's dictation in the fourth year of Jehoiakim, the son of Josiah, king of Judah, saying, Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, to you, O Baruch, You said, Ah, woe is me, for the Lord has added sorrow to my pain. I am weary with my groaning and have found no rest. Thus you, Jeremiah, are to say to him, Thus says the Lord, Behold, what I have built I am about to tear down, and what I have planted I am about to uproot, that is, the whole land. But you, Baruch, Are you seeking great things for yourself? Do not seek them. For behold, I'm going to bring disaster on all flesh, declares the Lord. But I will give you life. I will give your life to you as booty in all the places where you may go. At which came as the word of the Lord to Jeremiah the prophet concerning the nations. to Egypt, concerning the army of Pharaoh Necho, king of Egypt, which was by the Euphrates River at Carchemish, which Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, defeated in the fourth year of Jehoiakim, the son of Josiah, king of Judah. Let me tell you something about this chapter. So that you, there's several people speaking, God speaking, Jeremiah speaking, Pharaoh speaking. So watch the quotation marks. And also, this is a powerful prophecy. And as a result, there's all kinds of vivid metaphors to make it come alive for the people who heard it back when it was written. When you read this, it's like going to a movie theater. You not only hear these words, you actually see what's going on on the battlefield if you pay attention to the metaphors. Verse 2, to Egypt. Verse 3, line up the shield and buckler, draw near for the battle. Harness the horses, this is Pharaoh talking, mount the steeds. Take your stand with helmets on. Polish the spears. Put on the scale armor. Why have I seen it? They're terrified. They're drawing back. And their mighty men are defeated. And they've taken refuge in flight without facing back. Terror is on every side, declares the Lord. Let not the swift man flee, nor the mighty man escape. In the north, beside the river Euphrates, they have stumbled and fallen. Who is this that rises like the Nile, like the rivers whose waters surge about? Egypt rises like the Nile, even like the rivers whose waters surged about. And he said, I will rise and cover that land. I will surely destroy the city and its inhabitants. Go up, you horses, and drive madly, you chariots, that the mighty men may march forward Ethiopia and put that handle the shield, and the Lydians that handle and bend the bow. For that day belongs to the Lord God of hosts, a day of vengeance, so as to avenge himself on his foes. And the sword will devour and satiate and drink its fill of their blood. For there will be a slaughter for the Lord God of hosts in the land of the north. by the river Euphrates. Go up, Gilead, and obtain Baal, O virgin daughter of Egypt. In vain have you multiplied riveties. There is no healing for you. The nations have heard of your shame, and the earth is full of your cry of distress. For one warrior has stumbled over another, and both of them have fallen down." This is the message. which the Lord spoke to Jeremiah the prophet about the coming of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, to smite the land of Egypt. Declare in Egypt and proclaim in Migdal. Proclaim also in Memphis and Tophanes. Say, take your stand and get yourself ready, for the sword has devoured those around you. Why have your mighty ones become prostrate? They do not stand, because the Lord has thrust them down. They have repeatedly stumbled. Indeed, they have fallen one against another. Then they said, Get up, and let us go back to our own people and our native land, away from the sword of the oppressor. They cried out, Pharaoh, king of Egypt, is but a big noise. He has let the appointed time pass by. As I live, declares the king. whose name is the Lord of hosts. Surely one shall come who looms up like Tabor among the mountains or like Carmel by the sea. Make your baggage ready for exile, O daughter dwelling in Egypt, for Memphis will become a desolation. It will even be burned down and bereft of inhabitants. Egypt is a pretty heifer, but a horsefly is coming from the north. It's coming. All her mercenaries in her midst are like fattened calves for even they too have turned back and have fled away together. They did not stand their ground for the day of their calamity has come upon them, the time of their punishment. It sounds moves like a serpent where they move on like an army and come to her as woodcutters with axes. They have cut down their forest," declares the Lord. Surely it will no more be found, even though they are now more numerous than locusts and are without number. The daughter of Egypt has been put to shame, given over to the power of the people of the north. The Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel, says, Behold, I am going to punish Amon of Thebes, and Pharaoh, and Egypt, along with her gods and her kings, even Pharaoh and those who trust in him. And I shall give them over to the power of those who are seeking their lives, even into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, and into the hand of his officers. Afterwards, however, it will be established, as in the days of old, declares the Lord." But as for you, O Jacob my servant, do not fear, nor be dismayed, O Israel. For see, I am going to save you from afar, and your descendants from the land of their captivity. And Jacob shall return and be undisturbed and secure, with no one making him tremble. O Jacob my servant, do not fear, declares the Lord. For I am with you. I shall make a full end of all the nations where I have driven you, yet I shall not make a full end of you, but I shall correct you properly and by no means leave you unpunished." Quite a picture. 1517. What happened in 1517? That's pretty much the beginning of the Protestant Reformation because that's when Martin Luther wrote his 95 theses and nailed them to the church door in Wittenberg so that everybody could read about his complaints with the Roman Catholic Church. That's similar to what happened back in the days of the writing prophets. They would take their prophecies and you know all these prophecies begin with the word This is the word the Lord gave me, or whatever. And they were all single prophecies. And when they wrote them, the prophets would nail them to the door of Solomon's temple. So everybody could see these prophecies and read them. And then after a while, they'd all be collected in one book as we see in the book of Jeremiah. And we're going to see something interesting now in the rest of this book. The rest of this book is how God's going to deal with the pagan nations that existed in Jeremiah's lifetime. You're going to read about how God destroyed one nation after another, slaughtered them one nation after another, and then after he slaughtered some, there's actually some that he said in the future he would restore, he would bring salvation to. Some will be destroyed forever. So a good title for this chapter and the rest of the book is Behold the Kindness and the Severity of the Lord. God is severe but just in the way he punishes his enemies. And that judgment also in the lives of some of these people contains mercy. Now you notice the title of the sermon. Who'd want to come and hear a sermon with a title like this? When God destroyed Egypt for killing Josiah. You know who Josiah was? He was the greatest and godliest king of Judah. There was not a king to match Josiah's godliness. Interesting thing happened during Josiah's reign. A priest accidentally found the book of Deuteronomy that had been lost for hundreds of years. And so Josiah had them read the book of Deuteronomy and cried out for forgiveness for not obeying it and called upon the whole nation to begin obeying the law of God. And with that call to obedience, the Holy Spirit brought probably the greatest revival that ever took place in the nation of Judah. Josiah was a young man, godly man, courageous man. He heard that Egypt was coming through the Middle East and going through Israel on to the north. So he gathered up an army of the people of Judah, a small army, compared to the great army of Egypt. He goes out to try to intervene and to stop the advance of the Egyptian army. And they kill him. And that's why God was going to destroy Egypt, because they killed one man. That shows you the value God puts on godliness and holiness and faithfulness in Christian courage. You killed my boy. You killed Josiah. Now I'm going to wipe you off the face of the earth for killing my son. That's the attitude of God toward Egypt. Now let's look at these chapters. We'll just go hit the highlights, but it's too good not to go through it. Chapter 45 is sort of a summary of what's been going on, and it's about Baruch. You remember who Baruch was? Baruch was Jeremiah's amanuensis. Are you impressed with my vocabulary? He was an amanuensis, that is a secretary, a scribe, who would write down whatever Jeremiah dictated to him. And so the book of Jeremiah was dictated to Baruch. God guided Jeremiah's thoughts, God guided Baruch's thoughts, so that the finished product was inspired by God and incapable of error. So Baruch was a good man. He was a man who was one of Jeremiah's disciples, as well as Jeremiah's scribe, but he's growing weary. He's becoming fearful. He reads these prophecies that Jeremiah writes for him to dictate to him and he starts to get scared. It's about these mighty armies, the slaughter they're going to bring about. And Baruch becomes very, very frightful and worried about his future. And he complains to God about it. And in complaining to God, as in verse three, he says, Lord, you've added sorrow to my pain, and I'm weary. I'm getting tired of this groaning, and I want some rest. Now, what is he doing there? He's calling into question God's justice. That's a great sin. Lord, you're giving me more sorrows than I can handle and more sorrows than I deserve. So here is a very good man, a godly man. But things were getting so hot and so scary that he finally broke. It's like Thomas Chalmers. Thomas Chalmers was the Archbishop of Canterbury when Henry VIII was King of England in the 1500s. Henry VIII had Roman Catholic doctrine, though he left the Roman Catholic Church so he could divorce his wife. Thomas Cranmer was a Reformed Protestant and had a great impact upon England, even upon Henry VIII. Thomas Cranmer had gotten old and weary And people were getting killed. A lot of the followers of Tyndall Wycliffe were getting killed. Tyndall was burned at the stake. And so it came all the way to the time of Bloody Mary, who butchered about 300 Reformed people. And she said to him, Thomas Cranmer, if you renounce Christ and your Protestant beliefs, you'll go free. If you don't, we'll burn you at the stake. As an old man, he was weak, he was fearful, and in a moment of weakness, this great man renounced Christ and the Reformed faith, just like Baruch. Well, I've got to tell you the end of the story of Thomas Cranmer. So they put him, and they said, we want you to read your renunciation of Christ publicly. So they took him out to the scaffolds, and he said in so many words, I thought, if I renounce Christ, you'd let me go free, and you'd bury me at the stake. And they said, we lied. So now we want you to read it for the whole world. So Cranmer gets a piece of paper, puts a pen in his right hand and says, knowing now he's going to be burned at the stake, I do hereby renounce my renunciation of Christ and the Reformed faith. Then they tied him to a post, put the sticks around him. Before they burned his body, he stuck his hand in the fire, the hand that renounced Christ. And he held it in the fire until it burned the hand off. And he said, oh, wicked hand, to renounce my Savior, and held it there. And then they burned him to the stake. Well, that's just Thomas Cranmer. He's a great man. But Baruch is older now, and he's getting weak, and he's getting fearful, and he doesn't want to die because of one thing. He loves his own life more than he loves the temple. He loves his own life more than he loves the covenant people of God. And so God comes to him through Jeremiah and says, Baruch, what I have built, I'm about to tear down. What I've planted, I'm about to uproot. That is the whole land. He's saying, Baruch, don't forget I'm the one that created all these nations. Now I'm going to destroy them. I'm the one that created Judah in a unique way, and now I'm going to uproot it and tear it down because of its sin. Understand, Baruch, that it's me. I'm going to save you. You want to protect yourself. You love your own life. You seek great things for yourself. Maybe he was a little jealous of Jeremiah and wanted to be a prophet too. And so God says, verse 5, but you're seeking great things for yourself. Don't seek them. For behold, I'm going to bring disaster on all sinful flesh, declares the Lord, but I'm going to give your life to you as booty in all the places where you go. I should destroy you like all the rest, but I'm not. because I'm a God of grace. Now, I want to read to you a paragraph and a prayer by John Calvin on this 45th chapter. Very practical advice. Calvin says, let us learn constantly to flee to God and to seek of Him a new increase of grace. so that He may sustain us by the power of the Spirit and raise us up when fallen, for otherwise we cannot but fall every moment, even when our career seems glorious. But let us learn, being mindful of our infirmities, to ask the Lord to hold us up and to stretch forth His hand to us every day. And then he has a prayer. He always includes a prayer at the end of all of his lectures. And this prayer is also one that we should pray. Listen to this. Grant Almighty God that since thou hast been pleased to call us to this spiritual warfare, we may never be wearied. and that our weakness is so great that we are unequal to our conflicts, O Grant, that being supported by the power of the Spirit, we may persevere in the course of thy holy calling and never be broken down by anything that may happen to us. but learn so to break through all dangers as to commit our life into thy hands. And in the meantime, prepare to live or to die until thou gatherest us into that blessed rest which is laid up for us in heaven. Through Christ our Lord. Amen. That's a prayer we ought to pray every day. Now, let's go to chapter 46. Look what the first sentence is. That which came is the word of the Lord of Jeremiah the prophet concerning the nations. Now, if you flip through the last chapters of this book, you find that every chapter, it starts out with concerning to Egypt or concerning Moab, It's a prophecy concerning several of the nations, the pagan nations, that lived in that day. And God says He's going to destroy them. Some He's going to rescue later. But they're all going to feel the bite of His judgment because these nations did one thing. Now, these nations are not Jewish. These nations are pagan. They're heathen. They're not in covenant with God. God says, I'm going to all destroy them for one reason. They disobeyed my Bible. They disobeyed the laws of my Bible. And they don't believe in the words of my Bible. What does that tell you? That tells you that contrary to what some Christians today believe, that the laws of the Old Testament only apply to Israel, that tells you that all the nations of the world are to obey the laws of God. And that if they don't obey the laws of God, God will destroy them. Whatever nations they are, to this day, every nation on the face of this earth is obligated to obey and to rule by God's Bible to obey all the laws in that Bible, and to believe the gospel of that Bible, and if they don't, they go to hell. So don't forget that, because these evangelical and fundamentalist Christians have confused a great many people by saying the only laws that we need to obey are those of the apostles in the Old Testament, New Testament. We don't even need to obey the Sermon on the Mount Because that's not a Christian sermon. And the Lord's Prayer is not a Christian prayer. Those all have to do with the last dispensation. They all have to do with the Jews. Not with everybody else. But you flip through these last pages, and you'll see there's one nation after another that God destroys for not obeying His Bible. through today, whether you're America, whether you're red China, whether you're Russia, whether you're Thailand, whatever, wherever you are, all of those nations must obey God's Bible or be destroyed by his wrath. All right. Now the first one he's going to talk about in verse two is Egypt. And boy, is he ever going to lay out Egypt because they killed his boy. They killed Josiah, the godliest king that ever lived in Judah. So he says in verse 2, this prophecy has to do with Egypt. Concerning the army of Pharaoh Necho, now get the picture. This is quite a picture. Concerning the army of Pharaoh Necho, king of Egypt, which was by the Euphrates rivers at Carchemish, which Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, defeated in the fourth year of Jehoiakim, the son of Josiah, king of Judah. Now it is as if Jeremiah is there on the field ordering the Egyptian army what to do. So that's the picture. You get the picture of this massive army, and now you have somebody out there on the field ordering them to do as they make their advance northward. Line up the shield and buckler. Draw near for battle. Harness the horses on the chariots. Mount the steeds. Stand with helmets on. Polish at spears. Put on the scale armor. Now, that would scare a small army like Judas to death. But let's put that in modern words. I have seen enough war movies, modern war movies, that these scenes are quite impressive. When you have a small army, And then, like a great tsunami, you have this big army, hostile army, coming over the mountains. They got tanks. They got missile throwers. They've got thousands of infantrymen, all of them, with assault rifles. They've got machine guns. They've got attack helicopters and jets with bombs on them, and they're all coming right towards you. That's what Jeremiah's describing. This army seems unbeatable. Verse 5, why have I seen it? They're terrified. They're drawing back. Their mighty men are defeated and have taken refuge in flight without facing back. Terror on every side, declares the Lord. Let not the swift man flee, nor the mighty man escape in the north beside the river of Euphrates. They've stumbled and fallen. Now he's going to describe how this great army is defeated. and stomped in the ground with all their modern weaponry, with all their shields and swords and spears. Now God's going to say, here's what I'm going to do to them. There are so many of them. And by the way, we're going to see over here in verse, look at verse 9 and 10. There's all kinds of mercenaries fighting with him. It's not just Egyptians. I mean, you have armies from nations all over North Africa and East Africa joining with the Egyptian army. You even have armies as far away as Turkey on the other side of Mediterranean coming to Egypt to side with Egyptians as mercenaries. And this massive army of thousands upon thousands upon thousands is headed toward Judah. And God says, here's what's going to happen. There's going to be so many soldiers out there on the field. They're going to fall over each other. Not going to be able to march directly. They're just going to fall over each other. There's going to be so many of them. Look at verse six, they've stumbled and fallen. Who is this that rises like the Nile, like the rivers whose waters surge about? Egypt rises like the Nile, even like the rivers whose waters surge about. And he said, I will rise and cover that land. I will surely destroy the city it's inhabited. So, you know, once every year, the Nile overflows its banks and floods everything. Though Jeremiah says, That Egyptian army and all of its mercenaries is like the Nile. It is flooding everything and it's coming this way. And it's going to destroy everything like a tsunami. So now Jeremiah's out there standing in the field giving orders to the Egyptians, go up you horses, drive madly you chariots, that the mighty men may march forward. Ethiopian put that handle the shield and the Lydians that handle and bend the bow. what in reality this is, which Egyptians can't see. You know, if you don't have faith in Jesus, there's just some things you can't see in this life. That's why when you have unbelievers write history books, like McAuliffe, who wrote a great biography of John Adams, was a New York bestseller, But he doesn't say anything about John Adams' Christian faith. Why? Because you can't see in history what you don't believe. And so the Egyptian couldn't see this, but now Jeremiah is saying, I'm looking through Christian eyes. What's really happening today is, this day belongs to the Lord God of hosts. This big pitched battle that's about to come between these great armies of Egypt and Babylon. It's really the day of the Lord. It is a day that belongs not to the Egyptians, but to the Lord God of hosts, who is omnipotent, who's regulating every detail of this army, and whose omnipotence governs everything. And it is a day of the Lord's vengeance. Somebody's going to suffer God's vengeance today. He's going to avenge himself on his foes, and his sword will devour and be drunk on the blood of his enemies, for there will be a slaughter for the Lord God of hosts. Thousands and thousands and thousands of people are going to be destroyed today. And after the battle, when the Babylonians whipped the Egyptians, Then the great King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon invades Egypt and wipes it out. There's two phrases, phases. They battle on the field in a pitch battle, and then after Nebuchadnezzar's army destroys them, then they go on to Egypt, wipe them out. For there will be a slaughter for the Lord God of hosts in the land of the north by the river Euphrates. Go up to Gilead and obtain Baam, O virgin daughter of Egypt." How sarcastic can he get? Old virgin daughter of Egypt? Egypt is a virgin? Egypt is anything but. And so he's being very sarcastic and he's mocking Egypt. And he says, old virgin daughter of Egypt in vain. No, excuse me. There'll be a slaughter of the land north. Verse 11, go up to Gilead and obtain balm. You know what balm is? Rosin. It's that which oozes out of a pine tree when you cut off a branch or you cut it with an ax. And that was used as for medicinal purposes in the ancient world. In vain have you multiplied remedies. There's no healing for you. You've gone everywhere. You've gotten the best medicine money can buy. Nothing's going to help your defeat. There's no healing for you, Egypt. And the nations have heard of your shame. Now, this was just a little battle. Nobody hear about it. But the mighty Egypt has fallen. All the nations of the world are going to hear about that shame. And the earth is going to be full of your cry of distress. For one warrior has stumbled over another, and both of them have fallen down together. There's just too many shoulders on this field. They're running into each other. is the message which the Lord spoke to Jeremiah the prophet. Here's the second phase. About the coming of Nebuchadnezzar, the most powerful man on earth. King of Babylon to smite the land of Egypt. Declare in Egypt. Proclaim in these major cities, Migdal. Proclaim also in Memphis. That's where the pyramids are. And Taffanis. Say, take your stand and get yourself ready, for the sword has devoured those around you. Why have your mighty ones become prostrate? Why have all your mighty ones fallen to the ground? They could not stand because the Lord thrust them down. It wasn't so much the Babylonians that defeated the Egyptians as it was the God of Judah and the God of the church. I have here verse 16. They've repeatedly stumbled, indeed they've fallen one against another. Then they said, get up and let us go back to our own people and our own land. Let's get out of here. We're whipped. I don't want to fight anymore. So that means all the mercenaries went back home. They didn't want to suffer any more pain. So now this weakened Egyptian army, because it's been stomped pretty bad by God, is left by itself. to fight the mighty Babylon, and all the mercenaries are going back to their homes. Verse 17. These are the mercenaries talking. Pharaoh, king of Egypt, is but a loud noise. All of his boasting, all of his soldiers, they're as weak as a kitten. He just was a loud noise. He's no threat at all. Let's don't follow him anymore. He has let the appointed time pass by, the time for the battle. As I live, declares the King, capital K. I'm talking about Necho. He's not talking about Nebuchadnezzar. He's talking about the king of that battle. There's none other. and the Lord of hosts. As I live, declares the King, whose name is the Lord of hosts. Surely one shall come who looms up like Tabor among the mountains, Carmel by the sea. Two great mountains that appear to be permanent, stable, could never be overthrown. That's how they view Babylon. Nebuchadnezzar. Pharaoh's a loud noise. Nebuchadnezzar is a great immovable mountain like Tabor and Carmel. Take your baggage ready for exile, O daughter dwelling in Egypt, for Memphis will become a desolation. It will even be burned down and bereft of inhabitants. was one of the most popular cities in Egypt. Egypt is just a pretty heifer. Skips through the grass, eating grass. Nothing to worry about. But Babylon? Babylon is a horsefly. And it's coming from the north. And when it bites that heifer, That's it. Verse 21, also her mercenaries in her midst are like fattened calves, for even they too have turned back and have fled away together. They did not stand their ground, for the day of their calamity has come upon them, the time of their punishment. Its sound moves like a serpent, for they move on like an army and come to her as woodcutters and axes. So there's no, I mean, it's just a snake slithering across the ground. No threat, doesn't cheer, just sort of a silent hiss. And these Babylonians are cutting them down like, look it says, verse 23. They've cut down our forest, declares the Lord. Surely it will be no more found, for though they are now more numerous than locusts, and they are without number. So the Babylonians invading and attacking the Egyptians was just like a bunch of axe men going through a forest cutting down trees. No resistance. This mighty forest of Egypt is now a treeless plain. The daughter of Egypt, verse 24, has been put to shame, given over to the power of the people of the north, that is Babylon. The Lord of hosts who controls all the energies and powers of creation. That's what hosts mean. All the energies and powers of creation. The covenant God of Israel says, behold, I am going to punish Amon of Thebes and Pharaoh and Egypt along with her gods and her Kings, even Pharaoh and those who trust in him. You remember God's always at war with the God of Egypt. That's what the plagues are all about. Every one of the plagues in the book of Exodus upon Egypt was aimed at the worshipers of some particular God. God says, I hate these idols of Egypt. I'm going to destroy them, and I'm going to destroy everybody that worships them. I'm going to destroy Pharaoh. and everybody that worships Pharaoh and depends upon Pharaoh. Verse 26, and I shall give them over to the power of those who are seeking their lives, even in the hand of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, and into the hand of his officers. Afterwards, however, it will be inhabited in the days of old, declares the Lord. Did you get that? Behold the severity and the kindness of God. God wiped Egypt out. And then he says afterwards, someday in the future, Egypt's going to be inhabited and populous and flourish as it did in the old days. C is where you look at another chapter. That's a promise of the conversion of Egypt. 27. But as for you, Judah, O Jacob, my servant, not a servant because they deserve God's blessing, but a servant because God chose them to serve Him. But as for you, O Jacob, my servant, don't fear. Don't be dismayed, Israel. For see, I'm going to save you from afar. I'm going to send the Babylonians to whip the Egyptians. You don't have to worry about them. and your descendants from the land of their captivity. And Jacob shall return and be undisturbed and secure, with no one making him tremble. Now that happened a few years later. When Nebuchadnezzar died, and the Medes and the Persians conquered Babylon, the greatest king of Persia, a man named Cyrus the Great, allowed those that were in Babylonian captivity for 70 years to go back to Judah and Jerusalem and to rebuild the city and rebuild the temple. But these prophecies also have a farther fulfilling. They're fulfilled historically when God says, I'm going to send you back to the land, your homeland. You've got to be undisturbed. Nobody's going to make you tremble. There's a historical immediate fulfillment in the going back of those that were in the Babylonian captivity to Jerusalem to rebuild the temple. Those were the days in which Ezra and Nehemiah wrote their books. But these prophecies talk about a greater day in the future in the Messianic age when they shall return to their homeland. That is acceptance with God in the church with blessings and the forgiveness of sins. So it has two-fold fulfillment. I'm going to return you to your blessing and flourishing under Ezra and Nehemiah, and then I'm going to completely do it when the Messiah comes himself. Verse 28, O Jacob, my servant, don't fear, declares the Lord. I am with you. I'll be with you to the end of the age. I shall make a full end of all the nations where I've driven you and dispersed all over the world by these pagan nations. They've mistreated you. So I'm going to end their lives. I'm going to blot them out of their place in history. Is there any country called Ammon today? Any country called Edom? Yet I shall not make a full interview Judah, but I shall correct you properly and by no means leave you unpunished. You're going to have to go through hard times to punish you for your apostasy. But after I've punished you, that judgment is gonna lead you to repentance and to faith, and you're gonna come back to me, and then you're gonna be fully restored as the church of the Lord Jesus Christ. So this great chapter ends with mercy and a promise that God will build His church after He's corrected her, after he's disciplined her, there's coming a time in the future when all that judgment will lead her to repentance and she will come to Christ. Now I want to look at two New Testament verses and we're through. No, not two New Testament, one. But let's go to Isaiah 19. This is a great verse to study because it teaches you how to read the Bible. Look at Isaiah 19, verse 1. The oracle, or the word of God, concerning Egypt. See, several of the prophets talked about Egypt. Behold, the Lord is riding on a swift cloud and is about to come to Egypt. You read any of those verses in the New Testament that says that Christ will come in the clouds? And they, uh, people say, well, that all those have to do with the second coming. Oh, here it says that someday God's going to destroy Egypt and he's going to ride a swift cloud when he comes to Egypt. Idols of Egypt will tremble. Does it mean that Jehovah shall ride on a swift cloud to Egypt? The Lord's coming to Egypt on a cloud. Not a literal statement, metaphorical. What do clouds symbolize in the Old Testament? The glory cloud, the book of Exodus, that pillar of fire that led the children of Israel through the wilderness at night, That pillar of fire that sometimes was in the Holy of Holies in the tabernacle so that no priest could get into it. That holy cloud, glory cloud, was the brightness of God's glory. You couldn't look upon it. And it was the full display of all of God's perfections in the carrying out of His will. What is it? The Lord's going to ride a cloud to Egypt. The Lord's going to come to Egypt and He's going to display just what a great God He is in all His glory and in all His effulgence to show the Egyptians He really is God. So when you read these metaphors, don't take them literally. God rode a cloud to Egypt. What kind of cloud was it? Did he ride side saddle or what? Not literal. Simply means that God's coming to Egypt to display the glory of his power in her destruction. And so the Lord came to Jerusalem. in a cloud in 70 A.D. He came to Jerusalem and used his armies, who were the Roman armies, to destroy it again in such a way that his power and omnipotence and lordship and glory was displayed for all to see. So make sure you know how to read the Bible. You don't take every word literally, but you do take every word truly, and you watch for metaphors. So, The Lord is riding on a swift cloud and is about to come to Egypt. And the idols of Egypt will tremble at His presence, and the heart of the Egyptians will melt within them. So I will incite Egyptians against Egyptians, and they will each fight against his brother and each against his neighbor, city against city, kingdom against kingdom. Then the spirit of the Egyptians will be demoralized within them, and I will confound their strategy so that they will resort to idols and ghosts of the dead and to mediums and spiritists. Moreover, I will deliver the Egyptians into the hand of a cruel master, Nebuchadnezzar, and a mighty king will rule over them, declares the Lord God of hosts." You know, sometimes when God comes to a person It talks about the visitation, that God visited such and such a place. Well, when God visits somebody, it is to judge them. God came to Egypt with Nebuchadnezzar, not to save it, to slaughter it. that the hearts of the Egyptians trembled, and here again, the idols of Egypt trembled at the presence of God. 1 Peter chapter 4. Verse 12. Behold, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal among you which comes upon you for your testing, as though some strange thing were happening to you. He's talking about the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. I want you to look at this. Verse 17, just the first line. It is time for judgment to begin with the household of God. Let's change a preposition. If you notice in your Bible, there may be a footnote to the margin, but that word with It's time for judgment to begin with, is better translated from. Now let's translate it with from. When it's time for judgment to begin from the household of God. And if it begins with us first, the outcome for those who do not obey the gospel. So here's how God judges people. In a nation, the first thing he does is send his purifying judgment to the church. Purify the church, to sanctify her, to burn out of her the dross and all the wickedness and all the apostasy that she's experienced. So that when God comes into a country, bring his judgment, he starts with the church. The church, particularly those of the churches that are backslidden, and those churches that have rebelled against the Word of God, they shall be judged by God first. Because until the church is purified, and until the church is purged with fire, And until the church feels the purifying, purging effects of the fire of judgment, the nation's not going to change. So when God goes to judge this country, the first thing He does is bring His purifying judgment to the church. So understand that when you pray for the judgment of God on America for aborting 60 million babies, God's not going to start with the abortionists. God's going to start with the church. And it's kept his mouth shut. That refused to bark when his master was under attack. That's what Calvin said. Calvin said, why do you always, does your God need defending? He said, no. but I would be less than a dog if I did not bark when my master was under attack. So the first thing God does when you pray that God will bring judgment to America is he'll judge the church. That will hurt. And then after he's purified the church and led the church to repentance, then from the household of God, like the lava from a volcano, that judging fire will spread throughout all the unbelieving world and will slaughter God's enemies and those that persecuted the church and will even restore some. So understand what you're praying for. You're praying that God would judge America. Because judgment begins from the household of God and then spreads to purify the whole country. Lord, we thank you for these great prophecies and the encouragement they give us, that though our enemies outnumber us, better organized, better financed, nevertheless, they don't have a chance for the Lord of hosts. We do pray, Lord, that you would purify your church, that you would lead her to full repentance, purify the pulpits of this land. They might believe in the Word of God again and preach that Word because we know that once you've purified your church with redemptive judgment, then that judgment is going to flow like lava. and purify our old land. And we thank you for your greatness and for your glory. For Christ's sake, amen.