Isaiah 31 - Trust God Not Egypt

Chaos is loud, and it has a way of making “strong” options look wise even when they are spiritually empty. We open with a blunt contrast: God wants to give us peace, order, stability, and hope, while the enemy pushes tribulation, disorder, constant uncertainty, and despair. From there, Pastor Carl leads us through Isaiah 31 and the timeless warning about running to Egypt for help, treating worldly power and worldly thinking as if they can carry the weight only God can carry.

We talk about what happens when we elevate leaders, nations, money, or military strength into functional saviors, and why Scripture insists, “the Egyptians are men and not God.” Isaiah’s images are vivid and bracing: the Lord fights like a hungry lion who will not be driven off, and He defends Jerusalem like birds flying about. Along the way we explore the Hebrew pattern of prophecy with a compelling story tied to Jerusalem in 1917, then zoom out to Isaiah’s call to return to the Lord, throw away idols, and stop making peace with the enemy.

The conversation also gets practical and personal through the lens of spiritual warfare. Using passages like 2 Corinthians 4:4, John 14:30, Ephesians 2:1-3, and 1 John 5:19, we trace how the battle often centers in the mind, where the “god of this age” works to veil the gospel and reshape what we trust. We end with Isaiah 32 and a clear line of hope: a righteous King, true justice, real healing, and the present work of the Holy Spirit since Pentecost that empowers believers to live differently right now.

If you’re looking for a firm foundation, Christian peace, and biblical hope in uncertain times, hit play, share this with a friend who feels overwhelmed, and subscribe so you do not miss what comes next. After you listen, what is your “Egypt” right now, and what would it look like to seek the Lord first?

Come On Up is the radio ministry of The Mountain Cross in Waynesville North Carolina. To learn more about us please visit: TheMountainCross.com. 

Transcript

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Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob. He will teach us his ways and we shall walk in his paths.

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Welcome to Come On Up, the radio ministry of the Mountain Cross in Waynesville, North Carolina. The Lord wants to give us peace.

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The Lord wants to give us order. The Lord wants to give us stability. The Lord wants to give us hope. The enemy gives us the opposite of those things. Instead of peace, tribulation. Instead of order, disorder. Instead of stability, I'm never going to know what's going to happen next.

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And hope, there is no hope. It seems as if there are very few people left in the world who are under the illusion that everything is fine. There is too much chaos and corruption all around for us to feel like things will just work themselves out. Our bank accounts aren't secure. Our homes aren't safe. And there's certainly not any government that can protect us. In today's message, Pastor Carl wants you to know that the only true and lasting peace comes from God. He is the firm foundation on which you can build your life and not be moved. And now, here's Pastor Carl.

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Verse 1 of chapter 31 Woe to those who go down to Egypt for help and rely on horses, who trust in chariots because they are many, and in horsemen because they are very strong, but who do not look to the Holy One of Israel, nor seek the Lord. This idea that Egypt is a symbol of the world. Egypt is a symbol of worldly thinking. Might makes right, right? And even if you have to make deals with your enemy, as long as you can cheat your enemy more than your enemy is cheating you, you've made a good deal. And so they were going to go down and make a deal with their enemy to protect them from the other enemy, Assyria. Enemies of my enemies are my friends. That's the philosophy of the world, right? And God says, You've done this and you neglected seeking me. You didn't look to me, you didn't ask me, you didn't trust me. You took this into your own hands and you made a deal with the world. And what does that bring you to? And in verse 2 it says, Yet he, Jesus the Lord, also is wise and will bring disaster and will not call back his words. In other words, because of this, in his wisdom, he will bring judgment. But he will also arise against the house of the evildoers and against the help of those who work the iniquity. Verse 3. Now the Egyptians are men and not God. Do you hear that? We elevate these people, we elevate these empires, we elevate these positions that their deity, and even the pharaohs thought that they were God, and everybody worshiped the pharaohs as God. But we we put more credence into the president than we do in the Lord. And the president's a man. We put more credence, or we're more fearful of Russia or China because of what they've done and their power and their armies than we are of the Lord. And in horses or flesh and not spirit. No, it doesn't mean that. But it does mean if that is where we put our confidence, we don't have very much to stand on, do we? We need the Lord. When the Lord stretches out his hand, both he who helps will fall and he who is helped will fall down. They will all perish together. In other words, you're going down to Egypt for help. You're going down to the world for help. Do you know the world is going to fall? Because they don't trust in the Lord. And if you're aligning yourself with the world, if you make yourselves friends with the world, what do you become with God? You become an enemy of God, and both will be destroyed. Verse 4. For thus the Lord has spoken to me, a lion roars, and a young lion over his prey. When a multitude of shepherds is summoned against him, he will not be afraid of their voice, nor be disturbed by their their noise. A young lion, a young, hungry lion, pounces on its prey, and it's attacking it, it's bringing it down, and it's beginning to eat its supper. Is anything going to stop it from finishing his meal? Doesn't matter how many shepherds come and try to scare it away, it's just looking at them and keeps on eating. It's with that same passion that the Lord of hosts will come down to fight for Mount Zion and its holy hill. His people were forsaking him. Are his people aligning with his enemies or with him? Either way, he is coming back to Jerusalem, and he will take it back by force, and nothing's gonna stop him. Do you hear the tone there? Like a hungry lion, he's going to complete this work and nothing is gonna stop him, slow him down, cause him to trip. And verse 5, like birds flying about, so the Lord of hosts will defend Jerusalem. Defending, he will also deliver it. Passing over, he will also preserve it. Wait a minute, what's this? Oh, newsflash! Newsflash! Jerusalem is rescued by British after 673 years of Moslem rule. Oh, that's not from today. That's from 1917. Now, this is interesting. Before I talk about this, you remember in the Bible when we looked at prophecies, in the Greek mindset, prophecies have one fulfillment. One prophecy, one fulfillment. In the Hebrew mindset, prophecies mean a pattern of things. There's many fulfillments of these prophecies along the way. This is an example of a mini fulfillment of this prophecy, but it's very interesting. Let me read this to you. In 1917, the British general Edmund Allenby led his troops to surround the city of Jerusalem. It is reported that the night before his impending invasion, Allenby prayed that he might take the city without destroying its holy places. He had wired London for instructions and had received a simple reply, a scripture. See if this sounds familiar. As birds flying, so will the Lord of hosts defend Jerusalem, defending also he will deliver it, and passing over he will preserve it. Isaiah 31, 5. The exciting prospects of such a thing led him to have the verse read aloud before all his troops positioned in the foothills of Jerusalem. Then Allen B. commandeered every available aircraft for a flyover. Now they hadn't been flying for long. It was like a couple years that they've actually used airline airplanes in the military. And on the morning of December 10th, that seemed like a what seemed like a hundreds of planes skirted low from just over the hill of Evil Council, which lies to the south of the temple site. The sky was covered from wingtip to wingtip and from nose to tail with airplanes, British biplanes, captured German aircraft, everything that would fly. And as they flew low over Jerusalem in the eastern gate, one of the pilots dropped a note demanding surrender surrender signed by General Allenby. Now the Turks were frightened by the multitude of the planes. The Turks, which was a Moslem state, had control over Jerusalem for many, many hundreds of years at this point. And actually the Germans from World War I were aligning with the Turks to defend Jerusalem. Now, according to the reports, the name of Alan B further frightened them because they misread it. For the word Allah in Arabic means God, and Bay is Arabic for son, so they read it and they saw it as a demand for surrender surrounded by Alan Bay, the son of God. So in response, they hoisted a white flag and surrendered the city without firing a single shot. Now, this is based on a couple of books that were written a couple years after this incident. If you go to Wikipedia, you're not going to see this instant. So it may just be an urban legend, but it may just be something that was conveniently left out as well. But there are a couple of books that this was based on. And the truth is they did go in to the city without firing a shot. And General Allenby actually walked through the gate instead of riding on his horse because he said the Messiah needs to be the one riding on a horse through this gate. I'm just a man. And so this is you know one fulfillment of this prophecy. When the Lord returns with his army of angels, where is he going to set foot? On the Mount of Olives. And he's going to take that city. And so there's a pattern of if you trust the Lord and you honor him, he will free you. And look at Jerusalem, pray for the peace of Jerusalem because this has happened time after time again when the Lord brought his people back to Jerusalem, where Jerusalem was recaptured for his purposes, for his people. And because of this, Isaiah is appealing to the people. Return to him against whom the children of Israel have deeply revolted. They've revolted against God. They started riots because they didn't like what God was doing. In essence, for in that day, when every man shall throw away his idols of silver and his idols of gold, all these things that are sin, because we lift these things up in place of the Lord, which your own hands have made for yourselves. When the Lord comes and when he moves, and when we are seeking him and finding him and humbling ourselves before him, then our hearts will rejoice in the fact of who he is and what he's doing. But if you go and you rebel against me, the Lord is saying, you're going to be destroyed like your enemy. Don't make friends with your enemy, make friends with me. And I'm going to change your heart. And during this time, Hezekiah was the king. And Hezekiah was one who did good in the sight of the Lord. And there was a sort of a revival that happened during his time. Because as Isaiah is proclaiming this, uh Hezekiah is calling the people to repentance. He's taking down the idols from the mountaintops. And not everybody turns, but there was this idea that, you know, we are turning to the Lord. And when the enemy came to the gates and they were destroyed one night before coming in and destroying them, they saw the hand of the Lord at work and they rejoiced. They said, Yes, I'm going to serve my the Lord wholeheartedly. I'm going to get rid of these idols that do me no good. How many idols do we have in our lives that are not doing us any good? But then he puts his attention on Assyria. Then Assyria shall fall by the sword and not of man, and the sword of mankind shall not deliver him, but he shall flee from the sword, and his young men shall become forced labor, and he shall cross over his stronghold for fear, and his princes shall be afraid of the banner, says the Lord, whose fire is in Zion, and whose furnace is in Jerusalem. We talked about Gehenna, which is the city dump that was always on fire, always burning, which was a representation of the lake of fire, the ultimate destination for the enemy, for Satan and his demons, and ultimately for anyone who does not trust in the gospel of Jesus Christ, because there is no other place for them to go. And here he's saying Assyria would come and they'd be destroyed. And they were, right outside the gates of Jerusalem. And yet these are patterns and pictures of other things. When we looked at the Assyrian, the Assyrian is a picture of the Antichrist, the picture of Satan himself, the God of this world. Now you've heard that term, that the devil is the God of this world, I hope. And some people recently have talked to him about they said, no, no, no, he's not the God. Let me show you some scriptures that point to the fact that Satan is indeed the God of this world. First is 2 Corinthians 4:4. But even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, whose minds the God of this age has blocked, who do not believe, lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine on them. The chief goal of the enemy is to kill, steal, and destroy, and namely to destroy the gospel of Jesus Christ. To whatever way he can, he distracts people from the truth of the gospel. He questions the truth of the gospel, and he gives them other things to look at and consider besides the truth of the gospel. He's the God of this age. John 14, 30 says, and this is Jesus talking to his disciples before he goes to the cross and before he ascends to heaven. And now I have told you before it comes, that when it does come to pass, you may believe. God uses prophecy in the Old Testament in order to show that He's the God that's outside of time. He knows the beginning and he knows the end. When we go through Isaiah and all these other prophets, that's the deal. Isaiah, even last week, he said, write this down so that you know it was from God. I said it on this date, it happened over here. Jesus is using the same thing. I told you this is going to happen, and when it happens, you're going to understand. Now I will no longer talk much with you, for the ruler of this world is coming, and he has nothing in me. The ruler of the world, Satan. Now in Ephesians chapter 2, verses 1 through 3, and you he made alive. The Lord made us alive, those who trust in him, who believe in him, who have accepted the gospel and put all their hope in the Lord, who were dead in trespass and sins, in which he once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince and the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, among whom we also once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others. Satan is described as a prince in the power of the air, the way we think, the way we act, it's not just about going after fleshly impulses, but it's the way we think too. That's where spiritual warfare happens most predominantly, right? In our minds. Everything that exalts itself against the knowledge of God. That's the work of the enemy. And he does it in our minds. And yet it's the gospel that changes us. We once were like this. We conducted ourselves in the lust of our flesh. We were children of wrath, disobedient, going our own way. It's all about me. It's not about obedience and submission. That's demonic. And then one more, 1 John 5, 19. We know that we are of God, and the whole world lies under the sway of the wicked one. And when we're not in the Lord, what do we do? We lie in the sway of the wicked one. And the wicked one is all about fulfilling lusts of the flesh. The wicked one is all about rebelling against God and rebelling against authority. It's about disorder. It's about death. The Lord wants to give us peace. The Lord wants to give us order. The Lord wants to give us stability. The Lord wants to give us hope. The enemy gives us the opposite of those things. Instead of peace, tribulation. Instead of order, disorder. Instead of stability, I'm never going to know what's going to happen next. And hope, there is no hope because it's all on me and I everybody's against me. And it's survival of the fittest. You're not created in the image of God. You're just a bunch of primordial soup that came into being somehow. And when the Lord comes back and takes the keys of his kingdom and sets up his kingdom here on earth, there will be a time of peace and prosperity, and the enemy will be locked up for a thousand years and ultimately thrown into the lake of fire. So we still deal with this Assyrian. We still deal with the enemy. Are we making deals with him or are we trusting in the Lord? Chapter 32, he the Lord through Isaiah begins to give us some hope. Behold, a king will reign in righteousness, and princes will rule with justice. A man will be as a hiding place from the wind and a cover from the tempest, as rivers of water, and dry places, as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land. It'll be a time where righteousness rules. And when righteousness rules, good things happen, and people are strong, and whatever comes their way, the weather's not going to affect them. They're going to be bold and strong in the Lord. And again, as prophecies in the Hebrew mindset point to a pattern, this points to King Hezekiah. This points to his grandson Josiah. And ultimately it points to Jesus Christ, the King of kings and the Lord of Lords. When he comes and sets up his kingdom, this will fully be realized. And the princes, who are his princes? The ones that come with him, the ones that are believers in Jesus Christ. That he will set us up and give us authority, give us, you know, cities. And you're going to go to the city of Pete and hang out with him, and he's going to be in charge of that place. It's going to be glorious. And he's going to have decks built all over the place, and it's going to be fully manicured all the time. It's going to be beautiful. The eyes of those who see will not be dim, and the ears of those who hear will listen. Also, the heart of the rash will understand knowledge, and the tongue of the stammerers will be ready to speak plainly. When the Lord works in our lives and moves in our hearts, he brings us spiritual healing so that we can hear him and see him and understand him and proclaim his goodness. He also brings us physical healing so that we can literally see, hear, and speak the oracles of God. And if we want to be honest with ourselves, this doesn't just begin when Jesus sets foot on the Mount of Olives. What happened on Pentecost? The church was born, the Holy Spirit was given, people were empowered, and now the kingdom of God lives in believers. When you accept Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit comes and lives within you. And he also wants to come and empower you to do the work of ministry. And when he does, You're gonna do things that you never thought you could do. Amen. And this is what Isaiah is trying to get the people to grab a hold of. There's so much more. Don't just look to the world for protection to keep your kingdom alive. You think you're comfortable, you think you like what you build, but it leads to nothing and destruction. And during this time, he's gonna call things out for what they are. We're not gonna be fooled anymore. Verse 5 the foolish person will no longer be called generous. The fool said in his heart, there is no God. And there are many out there in the name of humanity, in the name of you know everything but God, that purportedly go out and help the poor. And the truth is they don't. They take advantage of the poor. Nor the miser is said to be bountiful. Just because you hold on and greedily hold on to everything that you've been given and everything that you earned doesn't mean that you're rich. You might have a lot of money, but the truth is you're bankrupt. Because the Lord gives us what we have to meet our needs and to go and to bless others, to perpetuate the gospel of Jesus Christ. The foolish person will speak foolishness, and his heart will work iniquity, to practice ungodliness, to utter error against the Lord, to keep the hungry unsatisfied, and he will cause the drink of the thirsty to fail. And the Lord says, No, in that day they won't get away with it anymore. Foolishness is going to be called foolishness, and it's going to be clear that they fight and rebel against the Lord.

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Thanks for listening to today's lesson from the book of Isaiah here on Come On Up. You're hearing from Pastor Carl at the Mountain Cross in Waynesville, North Carolina. Now, the book of Isaiah ends with a section that prophesies a new heaven and a new earth, which will come to replace the world that we currently know as it passes away. All of the promises and prophecies that God has made through the prophet Isaiah will come to their ultimate conclusion in this new kingdom. Death and evil will be no more, and goodness and justice will flow like a river. When we look at the world around us right now, it seems like chaos has already won. We can see live images of war, inequality, and sadness in just a few clicks, and it can seem like things will never get better. But Isaiah reminds us to look past the chaos that is right in front of us and fix our eyes on God's promises. That's how we can stay afloat when everything around us feels like it's collapsing. Well, if you want to join a group of believers who are looking together towards the new kingdom, we'd love to invite you to join us here at the Mountain Cross. We meet on Sundays at 10 a.m. at the Smoky Mountain Cinema. For more information, you can visit us online at themountaincross.com. There you will also find our How to Know God page, where you will learn more about how you can belong to the kingdom of God. Thanks for joining us today. Come on up to the mountain with us again next time as we seek to learn more from the Lord through His Word. Come on Up is sponsored by The Mountain Cross, a Calvary Chapel fellowship.