Bad Plans and Ideas
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21 Many plans are in a man’s heart, but the Lord’s decree will prevail.
The Third “woe” begins in 30.1.
Chapter 28 and 29 were about bad leaders
Chapter 30 and 31 are about the bad ideas these leaders had developed.
Chapter 31 actually seems like a rephrasing and condensed version of chapter 30
woe to trusting Egypt 31.1
Disaster will result 31.1
Egyptians are accountable to God too 31.3
Return to God alone and reject idols 31.6-7
God will deal with Assyria 31.8-9
woe to trusting Egypt 31.1
Disaster will result 31.1
Egyptians are accountable to God too 31.3
Return to God alone and reject idols 31.6-7
God will deal with Assyria 31.8-9
(I think it is important that as we gear up to put a “Long range, strategic planning committee” in place, we understand that our jobs as followers of Jesus is never to just to come up with plans and ask God to endorse them, but to seek His plans)
Plans Are Bad if they are not the Lord’s Plans 30.1-5
Plans Are Bad if they are not the Lord’s Plans 30.1-5
1 Woe to the rebellious children! This is the Lord’s declaration. They carry out a plan, but not Mine; they make an alliance, but against My will, piling sin on top of sin.
2 They set out to go down to Egypt without asking My advice, in order to seek shelter under Pharaoh’s protection and take refuge in Egypt’s shadow.
3 But Pharaoh’s protection will become your shame, and refuge in Egypt’s shadow your disgrace.
4 For though his princes are at Zoan and his messengers reach as far as Hanes,
5 everyone will be ashamed because of a people who can’t help. They are of no benefit, they are no help; they are good for nothing but shame and reproach.
a. An alliance against God’s will
b. Sin upon sin. (compounding the problem)
c. Zoan and Hanes… cities in Egypt.
d. Result will be shame… they are no help.
Plans Are Bad if made with Allies that have bad problems.
Plans Are Bad if made with Allies that have bad problems.
6 An oracle about the animals of the Negev: Through a land of trouble and distress, of lioness and lion, of viper and flying serpent, they carry their wealth on the backs of donkeys and their treasures on the humps of camels, to a people who will not help them.
7 Egypt’s help is completely worthless; therefore, I call her: Rahab Who Just Sits.
8 Go now, write it on a tablet in their presence and inscribe it on a scroll; it will be for the future, forever and ever.
9 They are a rebellious people, deceptive children, children who do not want to obey the Lord’s instruction.
10 They say to the seers, “Do not see,” and to the prophets, “Do not prophesy the truth to us. Tell us flattering things. Prophesy illusions.
11 Get out of the way! Leave the pathway. Rid us of the Holy One of Israel.”
12 Therefore the Holy One of Israel says: “Because you have rejected this message and have trusted in oppression and deceit, and have depended on them,
13 this iniquity of yours will be like a spreading breach, a bulge in a high wall whose collapse will come in an instant—suddenly!
14 Its collapse will be like the shattering of a potter’s jar, crushed to pieces, so that not even a fragment of pottery will be found among its shattered remains— no fragment large enough to take fire from a hearth or scoop water from a cistern.”
15 For the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel, has said: “You will be delivered by returning and resting; your strength will lie in quiet confidence. But you are not willing.”
16 You say, “No! We will escape on horses”— therefore you will escape!— and, “We will ride on fast horses”— but those who pursue you will be faster.
17 One thousand will flee at the threat of one, at the threat of five you will flee, until you alone remain like a solitary pole on a mountaintop or a banner on a hill.
a. Egypt has its own troubles but it didn’t keep Judah from the allure of Egypt.. verse 6
(How easy is it to get sucked in to the allure of what the world has to offer?)
Forbid it, Lord, that I should boast,
Save in the death of Christ my God!
All the vain things that charm me most,
I sacrifice them to His blood.
Rahab in this case is the cohort of the chaos sea monster Leviathan mentioned earlier. It is believed that the hippopotamus would be the symbol for this… a beast that dust sits in the water unable to do much.
b. Write it down so you can’t claim you didn’t hear. 8-ff
They wanted to be rid of God 11
God said OK have your way. 12-17
God’s People Have What We Need: Don’t Be Envious, Jealous, Or Covetous
God’s People Have What We Need: Don’t Be Envious, Jealous, Or Covetous
God Has a Better Plan
God Has a Better Plan
18 Therefore the Lord is waiting to show you mercy, and is rising up to show you compassion, for the Lord is a just God. All who wait patiently for Him are happy.
19 For you people will live on Zion in Jerusalem and will never cry again. He will show favor to you at the sound of your cry; when He hears, He will answer you.
20 The Lord will give you meager bread and water during oppression, but your Teacher will not hide Himself any longer. Your eyes will see your Teacher,
21 and whenever you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear this command behind you: “This is the way. Walk in it.”
22 Then you will defile your silver-plated idols and your gold-plated images. You will throw them away like menstrual cloths, and call them filth.
23 Then He will send rain for your seed that you have sown in the ground, and the food, the produce of the ground, will be rich and plentiful. On that day your cattle will graze in open pastures.
24 The oxen and donkeys that work the ground will eat salted fodder scattered with winnowing shovel and fork.
25 Streams flowing with water will be on every high mountain and every raised hill on the day of great slaughter when the towers fall.
26 The moonlight will be as bright as the sunlight, and the sunlight will be seven times brighter —like the light of seven days—on the day that the Lord bandages His people’s injuries and heals the wounds He inflicted.
If we could only see that God’s best is waiting… once we get to the end of ourselves, our plan, our ideas.
Through the years I have had the privilege of seeing several senior adult men come to know the Lord and become very zealous for the Lord and His Work.
To the last man they have said the same thing… I could have avoided a lot of trouble in life if I had just yielded to the Lord sooner.
He’s been trying to get my attention for years.
This morning we say where Isaiah said God was the potter and we were the clay. God made us.. He alone knows what is best for us, and has so much in store for us when we walk with the Lord in the Light of His Word. What GLORY he sheds on our way.
God’s Plan Involves Dealing with Our Enemies
God’s Plan Involves Dealing with Our Enemies
27 Look, Yahweh comes from far away, His anger burning and heavy with smoke. His lips are full of fury, and His tongue is like a consuming fire.
28 His breath is like an overflowing torrent that rises to the neck. He comes to sift the nations in a sieve of destruction and to put a bridle on the jaws of the peoples to lead them astray.
29 Your singing will be like that on the night of a holy festival, and your heart will rejoice like one who walks to the music of a flute, going up to the mountain of the Lord, to the Rock of Israel.
30 And the Lord will make the splendor of His voice heard and reveal His arm striking in angry wrath and a flame of consuming fire, in driving rain, a torrent, and hailstones.
31 Assyria will be shattered by the voice of the Lord. He will strike with a rod.
32 And every stroke of the appointed staff that the Lord brings down on him will be to the sound of tambourines and lyres; He will fight against him with brandished weapons.
33 Indeed! Topheth has been ready for the king for a long time now. Its funeral pyre is deep and wide, with plenty of fire and wood. The breath of the Lord, like a torrent of brimstone, kindles it.
(This was the goal Judah had when they made the alliance with Egypt, but good intentions that by-pass God’s plan, God’s timing, and God’s will are still wrong.)
Topheth in verse 33 is the same as the valley of hinnom (Gehenna) Jesus talked about. IT is a place of burning and torment.
One of the hard to understand things is that in that day God’s people will be able to rejoice as the wicked meet their doom. (29) I don’t believe we should have that attitude now. our rejoicing over the destruction of the wicked can be tainted by our own sinfulness. But I think we can take comfort in knowing that will right every wrong.