Egypt in History and Prophecy

 

Date: 8 February, 2011

 

In the last two months we have seen a number of different events that have taken place that have truly transformed the world. Whatever we thought the issues or the problems were two months ago they are not anymore; they have completely and radically changed because of these events. The first are the Wikileaks and Al Jezera leaks regarding Palestinian authority willingness to commit to give up a claim to a tremendous amount of territory in along the west bank, along with ceding claims to Jerusalem. The revelation of that has caused the leaders in the Palestinian Authority, and others to have to retrench and react and go to the other extreme, so the hope of any kind of peaceful settlement now that the Arabs have learned their willingness to give up some of these territorial claims is pretty much gone. Then there has been the food riots and a change of government in Tunisia and riots in Yemen.

 

Two or three weeks ago there was an election in southern Sudan where there has been ongoing warfare for the last 30-40 years. The northern part is Muslim, the southern part is not, and they voted overwhelmingly for independence. The US has stated that it will recognize their independence.

 

Earlier in January or late December Lebanon was basically lost to Hezbollah which has taken complete control, and this basically means that instead of just having a terrorist organization that is a proxy for Iran on their northern border Israel now has a terrorist state on their northern border. For Israel that is just like having Iran on their northern border.

 

Then, of course, we haven’t missed the fact that there have been these riots in Egypt going on for the last two weeks or so. Along with that there have been some minor uprisings in Jordan and the king is trying to get right out in front of that right now. He immediately fired his Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister, formed a new government, and is trying to get out in front of the demands of the people in order to prevent anything happening in Jordan that is similar to what is going on in Egypt. But we don’t know what the future holds for any of these countries right now. All of these events add up to basically a historical and political earthquake and right now the epicentre of that is in Cairo.

 

That means that whatever were the issues for Israel six weeks ago are not the main issue anymore; everything has truly changed, and it has changed for the US and for the world because whatever works out here is going to shape maybe the next fifteen to twenty years. We don’t know whether this is going to be positive or whether it is going to be negative. Anybody who prognosticates is probably going to make mistakes because it is an extremely fluid situation. Anything could change and we probably won’t know what the results of this are going to be for maybe another year. Just because they are going to have elections in six or seven months doesn’t mean that we understand the impact of those elections even once they are held. Right now it seems Mubarak is going to stay in office and maintain a position where he has had some sort of stability for transition but even that can change. We don’t know who a lot of the players are. A lot of the news that we get, whether we are watching Fox News, CNN or MSNBC or whatever news outlook we are looking at, it is all being openly controlled by the Egyptian Government. But we are seeing fewer than one per cent of the people out on the streets of Cairo in terms of the entire population of Egypt, so once again it is a very slanted view of what is going on.

 

Now and then there are emails forwarded to me from Christians who are there and recording what is going on and what they are saying doesn’t necessarily fit with what we are hearing on the news. So we need to read a lot and pay attention to a lot of stuff, and I don’t think we are living in an era when anybody can afford to not be a news junky. Listening to the news and understanding what the issues are so we can understand what is happening in terms of US policy and US politics, and the maintenance of our position of freedom and security is now second only to the amount of time we need to spend in the Word and our study of Bible doctrine. This is no longer the kind of optional thing where we can just sort of go on neutral and think the leaders in Washington or the leaders in Austin or Houston are going to do the right thing and they won’t do anything too bad that is too difficult to reverse. A lot of things that are happening are going to be extremely difficult to reverse and just inaction at the right time can be as calamitous as specifically taking a wrong course of action. It takes a tremendous amount of wisdom right now to understand when to act, when not to act, when to talk, when not to talk; and we need leaders who have that kind of wisdom. Too often, especially in recent years, politicians are playing to their bases and are not concerned about doing the right thing, keeping their mouth shut and working behind the scenes in diplomacy. So the more things that come out in the open the more difficult it is to come to decisions. We need to be following the mandates of 1 Timothy chapter two and pray for our leaders in all things because it is only in the environment of peace that we can continue to carry out work related to missions, related to the ministry, etc. Right now it is very easy to ignore, forget or not be aware of the fact that there are probably hundreds and hundreds of American missionaries who operate in Tunisia, Yemen, Turkey, Egypt, Jordan, etc. who in times of this kind of instability really do have their lives put on the line, or their ministry. So it is not just a matter of international politics and policies, not just a matter of what is best for Israel or the US; we also need to be thinking in terms of the ultimate mission of the church and Christianity—carrying out the great commission in terms of communicating the gospel. So it is important for us to understand the issues and to know want is going on.

 

In America we have a real problem, and that is that we have been taught from the cradle that democracy solves the world’s problems: everybody ought to have a democracy. That is an extremely flawed assumption. Hitler was elected by a democracy; Mussolini was put in power via a democracy; Hamas was put in power in the Gaza strip via a democracy, and so just because there is a democratic election it doesn’t mean there are going to be good results. When the people vote the result is directly tied to their integrity and their virtue, and if the people have neither then those who they elect will have no integrity or virtue either. If the people have integrity and virtue then the people they elect will have integrity and virtue. So just because you get rid of a despotic government doesn’t mean that using a democracy is going to solve a problem. It is impossible for a Muslim country which is dominated by people who think in terms of a an Islamic worldview to have a true democracy that respects opposing viewpoints and respects the individual. It is antithetical to their ultimate view of reality, due to their rigid, strict monotheism. As long as they hold to the kind of monotheism that they have in Islam it a contradiction in terms for them to value the many when the only thing that they have as an ultimate reality in the one. That is why they don’t value their women, why they don’t truly value every individual in society, and they never will. It is inconsistent with their whole religious structure.

 

When we look at Egypt it is critical to everything that goes on in the Middle East (actually it is in North Africa). It is the largest Arab country and has a population of 80-million people. Since the Camp David Accords in 1978 it has an army that is twice the size of Israel’s army. In terms of looking at Egypt as a potential enemy of Israel we have to recognize how dangerous Egypt. Since 1978 Israel has been able to relax in terms of its southern border to a large degree because Egypt was taken off the field and was not a concern. They were able to focus more to enemies to the north. Since 1994 their peace agreement with Jordan they haven’t had to be concerned about Jordan and they have actually been able to reduce their military expenditure to an extremely large degree. In the 1070s Israel spent 23% of its GDP on its military and national defence, and now they are spending about 9%, so they have reduced that by about two-thirds. Now they are going to have to go in the other direction if things do not go well in regard to Egypt and where Egypt goes.

 

Ever since the Camp David Peace Accords Egypt has been the corner stone of all US peace strategy in the Middle East and it has really been the basis for and the conduit for establishing ties with other Arab regimes in the Middle East and for trying to move the peace process forward. The basis for all US attempts to maintain and contain radical Islam has gone through Egypt. In 1991 the time of the first Gulf War Egypt was central to putting together and Arab alliance to go against Saddam Hussein but they did not join in the alliance to go against him in the second gulf war and that kept most of the Arab countries out of the war. As a result of Camp David the US gives $1.3-billion each year in aid to Egypt, most of which goes to its military. People ask why we give them anything. It is part of the deal at Camp David to upgrade and update their military. That means that Egypt at this point has 300 F16s and an army that is equipped with the latest technology that is two times the size of Israel’s IDF. We give them that much aid because that was part of that peace agreement. It seemed like a good idea at the time; forty years later it doesn’t seem like such a great idea, but that is often what happens in the twists and turns of history.

 

In the past two weeks a lot of people in the national news say lots of negative things about Mubarak. The press has decided he must go because this is a “horrible regime”—it’s autocratic, a dictatorship—but they have glossed over the positives. We have to remember that you can’t even classify Mubarak in the same category as Assad in Syria or Saddam Hussein or, of course, the ayatollahs in Iran. Look at the fact that the army didn’t start killing thousands and thousands when they started to riot in the streets. This just shows that his way of handling things was very different. That is not to say that he has always been good but he has been much better than any of the alternatives. Over the last forty years he has taken a truly wrecked economy on Egypt and improved it in a tremendous way. In terms of his foreign policy he has been a bulwark in terms of peace in the Middle East. He has never violated the peace treaty with Israel. It may have been a cold peace as some have termed it but he has been instrumental in locking down the Gaza strip and preventing radical elements from bringing weapons into Gaza that would be used against Israel. If he is removed the likelihood of having a government that will not honor the peace accords of Camp David is extremely high.

 

One of the names that has been bandied about by the western press (they are probably more in love with him than the Egyptians are) is ElBaradei who has a horrible track record. He covered up for the Iranians when he was part of the International Atomic Commission that was to go in and see what the Iranians were doing, and he lied for them. He is anti-Semitic to the core, hates the Jews and will not do anything in favour of them. The fact that he is going to be used or enter into negotiations with the Muslim Brotherhood is just another indication that there is nothing good about ElBaradei—and he is the best of the options. So whatever is going to come along in Egypt it is probably going to go from bad to worse.

 

In terms of the opposition we don’t really know much. The only group that has any organization is the Muslim Brotherhood. It does not have the power it once had in Egypt; it has been outlawed by Mubarak. It is very important to understand who the Muslim Brotherhood are, what their goals and objectives are, and that we don’t want to have anything to do with them. There are two things we can say about the Muslim Brotherhood, and to understand these two things says it all: a) Their goal is to destroy the state of Israel and they are anti-Semitic to the core; b) Their objective is to re-establish the caliphate—the Islamic political arm coming out of the Ottoman Empire that governed and unified all of the Islamic Arab countries up until the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. They came into existence four years after the Ottoman Empire dissolved in the early 1920s and their goal was to re-establish the caliphate. The thing to always remember about the Muslim Brotherhood is that they sort of reinvented themselves. They had a sort of brand improvement, to put it in modern parlance, in the 70s and they adopted moderate goals. They talked a lot about democracy and other things that would have resonance in the west but their objective is still radical--destroy the Jewish state and re-establish the caliphate, which would be centered in Turkey. We have seen Turkey move more to the radical Islamic countries and move away from the west and it is also getting closer and closer to the radical regimes in Iraq and Iran. 

 

So it is really important to watch these developments and see how they come out in the next couple of years. There are some democratic forces operating in Egypt there are many other forces, many other radical groups that are not on anybody’s radar, as well as the Muslim Brotherhood which although not really strong in Egypt still has the organization and the potential to take over. Many revolutions have started—the French Revolution, the Bolshevik Revolution, the Iranian Revolution, three which come to mind—by those who wanted democracy, had good ideals, and then once the previous government was overthrown they were taken over by radicalized elements. So we just have to be aware of these trends in history. Just because people want the right things doesn’t mean they use the right way to go about it and they end up often having their revolution co-opted by some radicalized group.

 

In addition to Egypt there have been problems in Yemen and Jordan, a few demonstrations in the Palestinian authority, a couple of attempts to have demonstrations in Syria but they were shut down very rapidly, and still turmoil in Tunisia. Jordan is something that Israel is most concerned about. The demonstrations there focus more on the government rather than the King. But if Egypt goes and goes radical then we can see all of North Africa going radical, including probably Jordan. There will be a domino effect that takes place.

 

People in the US need to be educated about the Muslim Brotherhood. Too often when we listen to various people on news shows say maybe it wouldn’t be too bad if we entered into negotiations with the Muslim Brotherhood. It would probably be better of we entered into negotiations with the devil himself! But we just don’t have any kind of absolute framework to judge evil anymore because we have become a relativistic nation that has thrown out religion, thrown out absolutes, and we have bought into this horrible, horrible idea of multiculturalism, that every culture is equally valid and equally good. The reality of that is if we really believe in multiculturalism then we have to say Hitler was just as good as George Washington, and we don’t have any leg to stand on to challenge that. Unfortunately most liberals, many conservatives, and all progressives have bought into that kind of garbage to influence their thinking. It is just horrific; it destroys objectivity and the ability to understand reality. 

 

The Muslim Brotherhood was founded in 1928 by Hassan al-Banna in Egypt and part of his goal was to restore the caliphate. Islam has evil fundamentals and its goal is world domination. The Islamists look at the objective in terms of the long-range goal. They will look at history and their objective over a period of centuries and they are not going to back off and relax because this is what Islam has taught them. That doesn’t mean that every Muslim believes all of that 100% but if we realize that there are one and a half billion Muslims in the world and only one per cent is fifteen million. It only takes one person to blow a dirty bomb in Washington DC or New York in order to wreak international havoc and so to act as if a person who is a Muslim who truly believes in all of the tenets and values of Islam, that they are on equal footing with a Buddhist or a Christian or a Jew, is just absurd. They are not, these other religions do not have the same goals or objectives as Islam.    

 

It is now viewed (because they have adopted modern tactics) as a more moderate group than other Islamist organizations that are operating in the Middle East, such as al Qaeda And a number of others. In September 2010 Mohammed Badi, who is the leader of the Muslim Brotherhood now, stated: “The improvement and change the Muslim nation seeks can only be attained through Jihad and sacrifice and by raising a Jihadi generation that pursues death just as the enemies pursue life.” Their goal is death; our goal is life. Christianity offers life. Even though the west has divorced itself from its Christian roots it is still a civilization that values life to a large degree, even though it has been pursuing death more and more over the past thirty years or so in terms of its philosophies and values. This is what he recognizes: Christians and Israel are enemies, they pursue life whereas Islam values death. If we listen to what people say in English, German, French or other languages they sound very moderate. But if we go to the Middle East Media Research Institute which translates speeches made in Arabic into English and we read what they say, their radical agenda has never been set aside. They preach hate against all of the countries in the west and Israel, they raise money for Hamas and for al Qaeda, and are fully supportive of all of the radical agendas. We have to remember that they have very flexible tactics and their agenda, their goal has never ever changed.   

 

In February, 2006, then FBI Director Robert Mueller met with the then head of Egyptian Intelligence, Omar Suleiman, who is now the new Vice President of Egypt, who told him that the Muslim Brotherhood was neither a religious organization nor a social organization or political party, but a combination of all three. In his view the principal danger was the group’s exploitation of religion to influence and mobilize the public. He claimed that the Muslim Brotherhood has spawned eleven different Islamic extremist organizations, one of which is Hamas.

 

What are the implications of all of this? 

 

1.         The first is that destabilization of Egypt radically increases the destabilization of the entire region, and in that chaos the radical forces of the Muslim Brotherhood and other radical Islamist organizations will move in so that they can influence the direction.

2.         The chances are that even with a moderate democracy the Camp David peace agreement will be rejected, which means that Egypt will no longer protect the borders of Gaza which is keeping weapons out of the hands of radicals in Gaza. The Muslim Brotherhood has stated that one of its primary objectives is to overturn the Camp David peace agreement which is the lynchpin for peace and stability in the entire region.

3.         If Egypt doesn’t continue to maintain border integrity with Gaza then Israel will have a serious problem on its southern flank.

4.         With the destabilization of these regimes all of the Middle East regimes become less dependable, their security demands go off the charts, and that means they are going to be spending more and more time and money focused on domestic issues and couldn’t care less about external issues such as peace with Israel or bringing peace to the region. It will also traumatize all of North Africa, and the horn of Africa will become extremely destabilized as well. If Egypt falls there will be a domino effects in the whole area.

5.         Between ten and fifteen per cent of Egyptians are Christians—Coptic Christians. They need to be protected. There are twice as many Coptic Christians as there are radical Islamists in Egypt probably, and they need to have a voice in government as well.

6.         We need to be praying for Christian missionaries that are there.

7.         We have to get out of the fantasy. Islam is not a peaceful religion. The religion of the Quran (those who take it literally) is world domination and they are not going to let anything stop them. So we should not operate on false assumptions with regard to Islam.

 

Three important points about prophecy; terms of prophetic interpretation among those who look at Old Testament prophecy and New Testament prophecy. There are three schools, just think of this as past, present and future. The technical terms are (1) preterist [Latin word that means past]. The preterist school looks at most of the prophecies in the Old Testament and prophecies Jesus made in Matthew 24 and Revelation as having been fulfilled with the destruction of the temple and Israel in AD 70. (2) The historicist view is the view that sees these prophecies being fulfilled over the entire period of time in which we are now living. So we could go in and see different things that are happening on the world stage and say this is that event, this is this other event, and so on, and we begin to identify where we are on God’s prophetic timetable. Where that led to historically was people saying, Oh, Jesus is coming back in 1837, or 1841, etc. (3) Pure theological dispensationalism said that no prophecy has to be fulfilled before Jesus comes back; all these prophecies are future. They don’t take place until after the Rapture occurs, so no prophecy is going to be fulfilled prior to the Rapture—with the one exception which is the beginning of the return of Jews to the land of Israel because there has to be a state of Israel in existence at the beginning of the seven-year Tribulation.

 

What we are getting today is a certain number of evangelicals and dispensationalists who can’t think logically. They don’t understand what imminency means and they don’t understand the schools of prophecy. The Rapture of the church is imminent, it could happen at any time. Putting those together that means that we can’t look at anything on the world stage and say Jesus is coming soon. We may all think that but don’t bet on it. We can’t look at one thing in the world today and say that the coming of Jesus is close. The only way we can say that Jesus’ coming is closer is that we are one day further down the calendar. We can’t predict. Things like events in the Middle East are clearly God moving the international chess pieces on the game board of history to prepare for that.

 

We only have three ways to look at the Hebrew prophets in the Old Testament. The first way to look at them is that they were who they claimed to be. They were honest men. When they said that they spoke the words that God gave them they spoke the words that God gave them. They were legitimate and they truly foretold the future because God was the one who was giving them their information. The second way to look at them is that they were religious charlatans, just frauds like every religion has false prophets and teachers who claim that they can predict the future, and they just happened to be better guessers than other religious charlatans. The third way to look at them is that they were sincere religious leaders who were devoted to Israel and their religion but they were liars all the same because they said God told them when He didn’t tell them. Actually in this view they didn’t have any predictive prophecy, they just wrote it down after the events occurred in history and made it look like they had predicted it.

 

The first view is the view of Orthodox Jews and conservative evangelical Christians. The second view is the view of skeptics, atheists and agnostics who think that all religious books are just made up by somebody who was on a power trip and they are all a bunch of religious charlatans. The third view is the view of religious liberals. They want to preserve something good out of these world religions but they don’t really believe them. They don’t think that there is any absolute truth but they think that there is some value there, so they try to say Jesus was a good man, the prophets were good men, but when you push them to the wall you have to admit they were liars because Jesus said: “Nobody can come to the Father except by me.” Either He was telling the truth or He was lying, those are the only options. Really option B that they are charlatans, option C that they were liars just doesn’t fit the record. The record is that when they could be evaluated their prophecies came true 100% of the time. That was the standard in the Old Testament—Deuteronomy chapters 13 & 18 lays down the groundwork. Some things were beyond their lifetime, so those were all validated by things that they predicted within their lifetime and of they only had a 99.9% record they were dead. God did not want anybody speaking for Him that wasn’t.

 

Egypt is one of those nations that is mentioned more than any other in the Old Testament—over 700 times compared to less than 30 times in the New Testament. There are 125 times in the Old Testament where God is reminding Israel that He brought them up out of the land of Egypt. That is a central event. The first time we see Egypt mentioned is in Genesis 12:10 when there was a famine in the land and Abraham took his wife Sarah down to Egypt in order to find food. The first prophecy that we see related to Egypt is in Genesis 15:13 NASB “{God} said to Abram, ‘Know for certain that your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not theirs, where they will be enslaved and oppressed four hundred years. [14] But I will also judge the nation whom they will serve, and afterward they will come out with many possessions. [15] As for you, you shall go to your fathers in peace; you will be buried at a good old age. [16] Then in the fourth generation they will return here, for the iniquity of the Amorite is not yet complete.’” Their entrance into Egypt is usually located around 1875 BC and the exodus was in 1446 BC, approximately 400 years. Then we don’t hear anything more. After the 10th plague, the death of the firstborn son which would have devastated the male population of Egypt, and Israel’s deliverance at the Red Sea which drowned the mighty Egyptian army, we don’t hear from them again for 500 years. Think about all the plagues that wiped out their economy and agriculture and military. The great and mighty Egypt was no more.

 

The next time we hear Egypt mentioned historically is at the beginning of 1 Kings chapter three when Solomon too the daughter of Pharaoh as his wife. That was 475 years after the exodus. The next time we see Egypt is when Pharaoh conquered Jerusalem at the time of Rehoboam the son of Solomon at about the mid-tenth century. Next time we hear of Egypt is about 200 years later, roughly from 740-690 BC, when Egypt comes up when there is the temptation for the northern kingdom of Israel to look to Egypt to deliver them, to be their ally, with the rise of the power of Assyria in the east. It was at this time that Egypt also was defeated by the Assyrians and they were warned about that by Isaiah. There are a number of prophecies in the book of Isaiah that were fulfilled historically and literally during that time as Egypt was defeated by the Assyrians. The same, then, about 100 years after that when there was the destruction of the northern kingdom with the rise of Babylon and the southern kingdom was also being tempted to rely upon the strength of Egypt to help them against Babylon. God warned them very much against that. Not only did Nebuchadnezzar defeat Judah but he also went down and devastated Egypt.

 

In the midst of all that are various prophecies. Isaiah chapter eleven is clearly a messianic passage, talking about the Messiah’s future kingdom that God promised to Israel.

Isaiah 11:1 NASB “Then a shoot [Messiah] will spring from the stem of Jesse, And a branch from his roots will bear fruit.” The tree trunk has been cut down. That is what happened after the defeat of the northern and southern kingdoms when they went out into captivity. But out of that tree trunk that had been cut down a “branch” would come forth. That is a name, a title, for the Messiah. [2] “The Spirit of the LORD will rest on Him, The spirit of wisdom and understanding, The spirit of counsel and strength, The spirit of knowledge and the fear of the LORD. [3] And He will delight in the fear of the LORD, And He will not judge by what His eyes see, Nor make a decision by what His ears hear; [4] But with righteousness He will judge the poor, And decide with fairness for the afflicted of the earth; And He will strike the earth with the rod of His mouth, And with the breath of His lips He will slay the wicked. [5] Also righteousness will be the belt about His loins, And faithfulness the belt about His waist.” This is the context of the future messianic, Davidic kingdom.

 

Isaiah 11:11 NASB “Then it will happen on that day [The day that His kingdom is established—yet future] that the Lord Will again recover the second time with His hand The remnant of His people, who will remain, From Assyria, Egypt, Pathros, Cush, Elam, Shinar, Hamath, And from the islands of the sea.” When was the first time that God restored His people from a worldwide dispersion? We think that is what we are seeing right now. It didn’t happen in the 530s BC with Zerubbabel. When they returned from Babylon it was just Babylonian Jews and a few others but there were still two-thirds of the Jews living outside of the land at the time of Christ in the first century. There was no worldwide return like we do today. The second return occurs at the beginning of the Davidic kingdom. God will bring back all of the Jews from around the world to Israel to establish that kingdom.  [12] “And He will lift up a standard for the nations And assemble the banished ones of Israel, And will gather the dispersed of Judah From the four corners of the earth.

 

Then we see that there is a destruction. This occurs during that end time of the Tribulation period, just when the Messiah comes and destroys the enemies of Israel. Isaiah 11:15 NASB “And the LORD will utterly destroy The tongue of the Sea of Egypt…” This is the Red Sea as it comes up between the Arabian peninsula and Egypt and up to the west of the Sinai peninsula. That is going to be wiped out, and prophecy says that in the kingdom there will be a highway between Egypt and Israel and Assyria. The traditional enemies of Israel in the Old Testament would not be enemies in the future and it is pointing to the prosperity that will be taking place during that time. “…And He will wave His hand over the River With His scorching wind; And He will strike it into seven streams And make {men} walk over dry-shod. [16] And there will be a highway from Assyria For the remnant of His people who will be left, Just as there was for Israel In the day that they came up out of the land of Egypt.”

 

The next major prophecy is in Isaiah chapter nineteen. The first part of the chapter talks about prophecy that was fulfilled when the Assyrians invaded Egypt at the time of Isaiah, but there is a shift in verse 16 to the future. Isaiah 19:16 NASB “In that day the Egyptians will become like women, and they will tremble and be in dread because of the waving of the hand of the LORD of hosts, which He is going to wave over them. [17] “The land of Judah will become a terror to Egypt; everyone to whom it is mentioned will be in dread of it, because of the purpose of the LORD of hosts which He is purposing against them.” This hasn’t ever been fulfilled in history.

 

Everything that was fulfilled in history was fulfilled literally the way that it was predicted. So it stands to reason that if that was fulfilled literally then that which is yet future which is to take place at the time that the Messiah establishes His kingdom will be fulfilled literally.

 

Isaiah 19:18 NASB “In that day five cities in the land of Egypt will be speaking the language of Canaan and swearing {allegiance} to the LORD of hosts; one will be called the City of Destruction.” The LXX says that is Heliopolis. [19] “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 near its border.” That has never happened. They will worship the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. That is not happening in Egypt right now. [20] “It will become a sign and a witness to the LORD of hosts in the land of Egypt; for they will cry to the LORD because of oppressors, and He will send them a Savior and a Champion, and He will deliver them. [21] Thus the LORD will make Himself known to Egypt, and the Egyptians will know the LORD in that day. They will even worship with sacrifice and offering, and will make a vow to the LORD and perform it.” That is not happening now. We can’t go into the Bible and find anything related to today being fulfilled in relationship to Egypt.

 

Most of the rest of what is in Isaiah were prophecies in Isaiah’s time and were fulfilled during his time. The same is true about Jeremiah. The prophecies in Jeremiah were fulfilled historically and literally, just as Jeremiah had predicted. Ezekiel has much the same message but he has a prophetic section in chapters 29 & 30. This is debated. There are those who believe that this was fulfilled at the time of Nebuchadnezzar. Ezekiel 29:1 NASB “In the tenth year, in the tenth {month,} on the twelfth of the month, the word of the LORD came to me saying, [2] ‘Son of man, set your face against Pharaoh king of Egypt and prophesy against him and against all Egypt.”

 

Ezekiel 29:6 NASB “Then all the inhabitants of Egypt will know that I am the LORD, Because they have been {only} a staff {made} of reed to the house of Israel.” Because they had been a false friend and false support for Israel they would be judged by God.

 

Ezekiel 29:9 NASB “The land of Egypt will become a desolation and waste. Then they will know that I am the LORD.   Because you said, ‘The Nile is mine, and I have made {it,}’ [10] therefore, behold, I am against you and against your rivers, and I will make the land of Egypt an utter waste and desolation, from Migdol {to} Syene and even to the border of Ethiopia. [11] A man’s foot will not pass through it, and the foot of a beast will not pass through it, and it will not be inhabited for forty years.” Nobody living in Egypt for forty years! There are people who say this was probably fulfilled at the time of Nebuchadnezzar but there is no historical or archaeological record to indicate anything like this ever occurred in history. Most dispensationalists believe that this is yet future and is the result of the destruction that comes upon Egypt after Armageddon.

 

Ethiopia and Libya are mentioned in 30:5 which talks about the same period of time. Libya and Ethiopia are tied to the Ezekiel 38 and 39 invasion of Israel. We see that after those forty years God is going to restore the people to Egypt and they will be a lowly nation. Ezekiel 30:23 NASB “I will scatter the Egyptians among the nations and disperse them among the lands.” This has never happened yet. Chapter 31 talks about the fact that Egypt will be made a lowly or abased nation.

 

The only other place Egypt is mentioned in the Old Testament is at the end of Daniel. All through Daniel 11 it is mentioned as the king of the south. All of the prophecies in Daniel chapter eleven were fulfilled literally and precisely. They are detailed prophecies and were fulfilled during the inter-advent period described by the books of the Maccabees between 200-300 BC, until we get down to verse 36. From v. 36 on it is yet future. It talks about Egypt in vv. 42, 43.

 

Daniel 11:42 NASB “Then he [Antichrist] will stretch out his hand against {other} countries, and the land of Egypt will not escape. [43] But he will gain control over the hidden treasures of gold and silver and over all the precious things of Egypt; and Libyans and Ethiopians {will follow} at his heels. [44] “But rumors from the East and from the North will disturb him, and he will go forth with great wrath to destroy and annihilate many.” We think that is where we will see the connection with Ezekiel 38 & 39. The Antichrist goes about to destroy and annihilate those armies. [45] “He will pitch the tents of his royal pavilion between the seas and the beautiful Holy Mountain; yet he will come to his end, and no one will help him.”

 

What do we learn from all of this? This takes us back to Isaiah 12. The bottom line in all of this is that God is saying to Israel, despite all the calamity and chaos and despite the fact that Israel is overrun time and time again and all the Jews are scattered throughout the whole world, “I am in control; I will bring you back to the land; I will fulfil my promises to you, so you can rest and relax and not be afraid.”  

So at the end when it is all done and Israel has been restored: Isaiah 12:1 NASB “Then you will say on that day, ‘I will give thanks to You, O LORD; For although You were angry with me, Your anger is turned away, And You comfort me. [2] Behold, God is my salvation, I will trust and not be afraid; For the LORD GOD is my strength and song, And He has become my salvation.’”

 

No matter what happens, God is in control. In the worst case scenario we can think of we don’t have to worry. God is in control. We can rest and just be about our mission and not worry about whatever winds of change blow across history.

 

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