The sermon titled 'How is God Hurting You - Exposition of Isaiah 19:1-25' by Scott Brown explores the theme of God's judgment and salvation, specifically focusing on the prophecy against Egypt in Isaiah 19. It illustrates how God uses judgment as a means to bring about repentance and healing among nations and individuals. The sermon outlines various types of collapse—religious, social, political, and economic—described in the passage, showing how these are used by God to demonstrate the futility of trusting in idols and worldly powers. Egypt is used symbolically to portray a place of bondage, false hope, and eventual redemption. The sermon emphasizes God's sovereignty over world events, including political and economic upheavals, and suggests that God's judgment is not random but part of a divine plan to restore His people. The narrative of Egypt's eventual salvation illustrates how God can transform even the hardest hearts, leading them to fear, repentance, and ultimately, healing. The message encourages believers to recognize God's hand in their trials and to trust in His purpose, acknowledging that He strikes in order to heal.

Isaiah 19. The burden against Egypt. Behold, the Lord rides on a swift cloud and will come into Egypt. The idols of Egypt will totter at his presence, and the heart of Egypt will melt in its midst. I will set Egyptians against Egyptians.

Everyone will fight against his brother and everyone against his neighbor. City against city, kingdom against kingdom. The spirit of Egypt will fail in its midst. I will destroy their council, and they will consult the idols and the charmers, the mediums and the sorcerers, and the Egyptians I will give into the hand of a cruel master and the fierce king will rule over them Says the Lord the Lord of hosts The waters will fail from the sea and the river will be wasted and dried up The rivers will turn foul the brooks of defense will be emptied and dried up. The reeds and rushes will wither, the papyrus reeds by the mouth of the river and everything sewn by the river will wither, be driven away, and be no more.

The fishermen also will mourn, and those will lament who cast hooks into the river, and they will languish who spread nets on the waters. Moreover, those who work in fine flax and those who weave fine fabric will be ashamed, and its foundations will be broken. All who make wages will be troubled of soul. Surely the princes of Zoan are fools. Pharaoh's wise counselors give foolish counsel.

How do you say to Pharaoh, I am the son of the wise, the son of ancient kings. Where are they? Where are your wise men? Let them tell you now, and let them know what the Lord of hosts has purposed against Egypt. The princes of Zoan have become fools.

The princes of Noph are deceived. They have also deluded Egypt, those who are the mainstay of its tribes. The Lord has mingled a perverse spirit in her midst, and they have caused Egypt to err in all her work, as a drunken man staggers in his vomit. Neither will there be any work for Egypt, which the head or the tail, palm branch or bulrush may do. In that day Egypt will be like women, and will be afraid and fear because of the waving of the hand of the Lord of hosts, which he waves over it.

And the land of Judah will be a tear to Egypt. Everyone who makes mention of it will be afraid in himself because of the counsel of the Lord of hosts, which he has determined against it. In that day, five cities in the land of Egypt will speak the language of Canaan and swear by the Lord of hosts. One will be called the city of destruction. 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 at its border.

And it will be for a sign and for a witness to the Lord of hosts in the land of Egypt, for they will cry to the Lord because of the oppressors, and he will send them a Savior and a mighty one, and he will deliver them. Then the Lord will be known to Egypt and the Egyptians will know the Lord in that day and will make sacrifice and offering. Yes, they will make a vow to the Lord and perform it. And the Lord will strike Egypt. He will strike and heal it.

They will return to the Lord, and he will be entreated by them and heal them. In that day, there will be a highway from Egypt to Assyria. And the Assyrian will come into Egypt, and the Egyptian into Syria. And the Egyptians will serve with the Assyrians. In that day Israel will be one of three with Egypt and Assyria, a blessing in the midst of the land, whom the Lord of hosts shall bless, saying, blessed is Egypt, my people, and to Syria, the work of my hands, and Israel, my inheritance.

Let's pray. O Lord, free us today of any distractions that might take us away from the focus that your word deserves. Lord, we pray for the Holy Spirit to be upon Mr. Brown's heart and head and words. Lord, would Your Spirit work in our hearts to teach us what we need to hear, what we need to see.

Lord, bless the time that your word is preached. We pray, amen. It's a blessing always to be before the word of God as it seeks to grow us, to mature us, to help us to understand the world the way that it really is, instead of the way that we've always understood it in our own thinking. And here in Isaiah, one of the things that God has been teaching us over and over again is the way that he glorifies himself in judgment. And not only does he glorify himself in judgment, in the judgments upon his own people, as we learned in Isaiah chapter 1-12.

He also glorifies himself in the judgment of the nations. And so we're learning about what God is about when he judges, when he chastises. And it begins really with the way that he judges the world and then down to the way that he judges the nations and then the way that he judges a nation, the way that he judges his people within a nation, and even the way that he judges a church, a local church, or a family, or even an individual. Because the things that Isaiah is speaking of in terms of the way that God glorifies Himself in judgment should help us to think rightly about the difficulties, the judgments, the travails that come upon us. They're there for a reason.

And the heart of the importance of this chapter in Isaiah, chapter 19, is that it declares that when God wants to heal a people in a nation, He first must strike them. And He's been saying this in many ways throughout Isaiah so far. In Isaiah chapter 1 he said, why should I strike you again? And there he's speaking to his people, his covenant people. And now in these chapters that we're engaged in, in this section in Isaiah from chapter 13 to chapter 23, God is showing how He is striking the nations, but He's doing it for a very specific purpose.

That He is striking them for one purpose and one purpose alone, and that is that He would heal them. And it shows us that the road to blessing can often be a difficult road. It often begins with the direct striking of the judgment of God and the fear that results. But the fear leads to repentance and hope and reconciliation with God. And God uses these things to secure our salvation and also to secure our progressive sanctification.

And so Isaiah chapter 19 illustrates how God strikes the people of a nation in order to heal them. Now I'd like to give you a sense of the structure of this passage as well. Verses 1 through 15 explain how God is going to bring the religious and social and political economic life of Egypt to a complete collapse. But in verses 16 through 24, he shows how he will heal some in Egypt as a result of his striking them. And he actually saves them from quote-unquote the city of destruction which might remind you of John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress where the city of destruction appears in the narrative there.

But what we find here is that God stretches out his hand in judgment in order to soften hard and idolatrous hearts. And So God here is desiring to bring Egypt to repentance. He's using Egypt to tell the story of salvation. It really is a type of, really even of the conversion of the individual, how one is stricken with fear of their sins and the wrath of God and it drives them to repentance. This is the picture that's here.

What happens in this narrative is that God is using the greatest oppressor of God's people to serve as an illustration of the salvation that He brings to sinners. How He can soften even the hardest idolaters and sorcerers of Egypt. He'll use Israel's greatest enemy, Egypt. And he will use them in this way. He will show the people of God that God can even turn an Egyptian's heart.

And that he will give the Egyptians a new language and a Savior and a mighty one who will deliver them and he will draw them into into his altar so that they'll worship him and be healed and their lives will change and the text says they will make a vow to the Lord and perform it. And it says that there will be quote blessing in the midst of the land. And So when you see a picture like this before your eyes, it's right to ask, how is he striking us? How is he striking me? If his motivation for striking is for healing, then it would be very important to understand first that he is striking, to admit that he is, rather than to think that some strange force of chance, some random situation has happened.

You know there are no random situations in the world. God uses all things for His glory. And He glorifies Himself in judgment, because His judgment causes fear and repentance, and the final bowing down, which causes what? Healing. And it can happen in a nation, and it can happen in a church, and it can happen in a family, and it can happen in the heart of an individual.

That's the way that God works. So We should ask, how is he humbling us? How is he desiring our healing? Now there's a wider context here. First of all, in chapters 1-12, God is calling Judah to repent.

The voice of chapters 1-12 is toward Judah. And then in chapters 13 through 23 are the oracles against the nations. God's voice mostly is toward Judah in this section. And he is speaking to Judah about different nations and his judgment against those nations. And he first, in chapters 13 and 14, speaks of Babylon, the oracles against Babylon.

We spent three weeks walking through the judgments against Babylon, which is such a significant thing, such a significant category in Scripture. Babylon is the corrupting influence and God is judging that influence. And then in chapter 14, it's Assyria and also in 14 it's Felicity. In chapters 15 and 16, God is speaking to Israel about how He will judge Moab and then how He will judge Damascus or Syria. And then last week we spoke of how God would judge Ethiopia and now Egypt.

And in all of these there's a particular message and he's speaking to the people of God to help them to recognize the corrupting influences of the nations but at the same time how he will absolutely destroy everything raised up against him in every nation. For example, in Babylon, Babylon will corrupt you and God says, no, I will stop the corruption through my son. Assyria will use you and he'll make promises and he will not fulfill them. Philistia will hate you and slander you. That's all the Philistines ever did to the people of God.

Moab will invite you to sin. Damascus will make you forget God. Ethiopia will be terrible to you as a terrible people and Egypt will seduce you to trust her. So God is speaking of these various ways that the devil works through the nations of the world And what he's saying in every one of them, he's saying this to his people very tenderly as he's looking at them eye to eye. He's saying, I will destroy everything raised up against me.

Flee to me. Trust me. Trust me and me alone. Stop loving Babylon. Stop loving Assyria and Philistia and Moab and Damascus and Ethiopia and Egypt.

Love me and love me alone. And so here, it's really a message of salvation. Of course, the name of Isaiah's very name means God is our salvation. And that's really the whole proposition that we've been dealing with. Now first of all, we engage the text here in verse one, the burden against Egypt.

Oh, we've read that before, haven't we? The burden against Babylon, the burden against Moab, these are burdens that God has toward these various nations. He deals in a highly customized way with individuals and families and nations. He speaks to them directly and he has a particular burden against Egypt. And what we've been saying all along is that when we read that, the burden, when we read the burden against such and such nation, we should always ask, what is the burden?

What is God's burden for my nation? What is God's burden for our church? What is God's burden for my family? What is God's burden for me? What burden does God have for you as you're working your way out in this world?

God has a burden for all of us. All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. And there's a burden that He has. There are things that exist in our hearts. There are sins that are at work there.

And unless we recognize God's burden and be delivered from our sins, then we will be destroyed. So what is God's burden? I pray that as we go through these burdens, we'll be so aware of what they are for us. And the purpose of this burden here against Egypt is that God is using this burden to argue with Judah against trusting in Egypt. And remember, he's speaking to his covenant people about how they should interpret and respond to the geopolitical movements of the nations.

And what he is saying is that these movements are not by chance, they're part of his plan. And Judah was seeing Egypt as a protector, as a refuge, as a source of counsel and wisdom, and a source of wealth and provision. And God is here announcing that He is going to overthrow the foundation of their hopes. They're placing their hopes in the wrong place. They're placing their hopes in Egypt after all.

And he's saying that he's going to knock out all of their worldly props. Egypt is their prop. They want to lean against Egypt. And he's saying, I'm going to knock Egypt out. This is my burden for you." God is announcing here that He will destroy the Egyptians by the Assyrians.

This is reflective of Isaiah chapter 30 where God explains what He's doing. He says, Woe to the rebellious children, says the Lord, who take counsel but not of Me, who devise plans but not of My Spirit, that they may add sin to sin, who walk to go down to Egypt and have not asked my advice." And he says, woe to those who go down to Egypt for advice. Woe to those who lean against Egypt. God is arguing with his people saying, do not trust in Egypt. It's an argument that he's making.

And he's telling that it's a disaster waiting to happen when you trust in anyone or anything but God and God alone. You know, you cannot trust your children, you cannot trust your spouse, you cannot trust anything in this world except the Lord Jesus Christ. And that's the message that he has. Now, Egypt is symbolic of many things in the Bible. I'll just give you at least five things here that it's symbolic of quickly.

First of all, it's symbolic of a place of bondage and oppression. Secondly, it's symbolic of a place of refuge and abundance as Abraham sought provision in Egypt, and Mary and Joseph also fled there for refuge. Thirdly, Egypt is also a place to come out of. Hosea 11, chapter 1 says, says, when Israel was a child and I loved him and out of Egypt I called my son. Fourthly, Egypt is a place of false hopes.

And these false hopes would bring Judah back into bondage. And there were various forces at work to bring Judah back into bondage. There were external pressures. Assyria was threatening from the north, and Egypt was alluring from the south. Number five, it was a place where there was a king who did not know Joseph.

Egypt tells us how kings are raised up who cannot relate to God or his people, and they actually become enemies of God. And so you have these threats that are about, that are driving the people of God to Egypt. And this is true of us as well. It's our fears often that drive us to Egypt, to trust in man, to engage in our own devices, to walk in the flesh because we're so fearful of what might happen to us, that we go down to Egypt for advice. And Judah was looking to Egypt for support.

And so there's this burden against Egypt. You know, when we were at the abortion clinic yesterday, it was so riveting to me. And I really thought of perhaps one of the great burdens of God for America is a burden for the murder of millions and millions of children over the years. And as you stand there and appeal to those who are going to get abortions, or those who are taking people to get abortions, what are you faced with? You're faced with insolence and anger.

You're faced with threats you're faced with coarse gesturing by the cars driving by. There's a hatred, there's an insolence, there's a rebellion, there's a brazen hatred of beautiful things in our land today. And it results in the killing of children. People wonder why feminism is so bad. Just go to an abortion clinic and you can find the end result of it right there.

But what is the burden against America? What we learn from here is that the Lord will strike Egypt because he wants to heal Egypt. And then in verse 1 continuing we read about first of all the burden against Egypt, behold the Lord rides on a swift cloud and will come into Egypt. The idols of Egypt will totter at his presence and the heart of Egypt will melt in its midst." So Isaiah begins the oracle against Egypt with an illustration of the Lord riding on a swift cloud in judgment. And it's very reminiscent of Matthew chapter 24, verse 30, where the sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven and all the tribes of the earth will mourn and they will see the coming of the Son of Man on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory." It's a picture of the ascendancy and the mighty power of God.

He rules over all things and He comes as if in the clouds. And as a result, the heart of Egypt will melt. Now, in the Egyptian religion, the heart was the center of emotions and thinking. And if you read about the Egyptian funerals, you realize that when people died, they were judged for their heart, really for their behavior that was symbolized by their heart. So in the Egyptian book of the dead you have this knowledge of the weighing of hearts to see if one is worthy for the afterlife.

And the Egyptians illustrated this with a great scale, with the heart on one side of the scale and a feather on the other. And you could you would enter rightly into the afterlife if your heart was light, as light as a feather. Light, Light with sin was the whole idea. And if your heart was not light, if the scale would tip, then your heart would be grabbed and be devoured by Ammit, who was a horrible beast called the gobbler. He had the head of a crocodile and the body of a leopard and the back legs of a hippopotamus.

So your heart would be gobbled up, but there is no torment in hell. Your heart was just gobbled up and that was the end of it. But if you were good, you would go into the afterlife in a different way. But what God says is here is He is going to expose these idols of the Egyptians. He's going to destroy their understanding of the world, how wrong it was, that they could somehow be saved by the lightness of their heart, by the goodness of their works, that it would be as light as a feather.

No, no man is not saved because his heart is light as a feather. His heart is saved because it's heavy with sin and God in His Son Jesus Christ has borne the heaviness of man's sin and borne it on the cross and taken all the punishment that the heavy, hard-hearted, sinful-laden spirit of man bears. God will expose the idols of Egypt in that way. The Lord will strike Egypt so that He will heal it. And then in verses 2 through 4 you see this social collapse You look at look at the outline with me you for you.

You see this the collapse of Egyptian religion We just read about that and then there's social collapse in verses 2 through 4 And then there's economic collapse in verses 5 through 10. And then there's political collapse in verses 11 through 15. And then finally in verses 16 through 25, there's the healing of Egypt. That's the basic outline. But here you see the social collapse.

And there are three main elements to this social collapse that Isaiah is telling the people of God about. First of all, he will destroy from within. He says, I will set Egyptians against Egyptians. Everyone will fight against his brother and everyone against his neighbor. City against city, kingdom against kingdom.

This is social collapse as a result of a civil war. God is going to engineer a social collapse from within. He will incite war from among the people, one with another. It should bring images back to our minds about our own Civil War and how brothers actually rose up against brothers. It was a tragic and terrible war that took place here on our own soil.

Now this is one of the, this is the first of the three I wills in this chapter. The first one appears in chapter two. I will set, I will set Egyptians against one another. The next is in verse 3, I will destroy. The next one is in verse 4, I will give.

So God is doing something. God is fomenting all of this infighting. God is even sovereign over the raging hatreds of people toward one another. This theme continues throughout the chapter. God is the center of the activity.

God is doing His will. In verse 14, we learn that He's actually twisted their minds. Verse 14, The Lord has mingled a perverse spirit in her midst. God is doing this. God is sovereign over all the things that take place in the nations.

On the one hand, God is sovereign over it. He's bringing history to its proper conclusion. But he also holds those accountable for those who violate his ways. The second main element of the social collapse is that he will cause vigor and counsel and strategies to fail. That's in verse 3.

The spirit of Egypt will fail in its midst. I will destroy their council, and they will consult the idols and the charmers, the mediums and the sorcerers." And What he's saying is he is going to destroy their vigor and their animation and their disposition, their spirits will just fail. There are many places we could go to cross-reference this to see what this looks like. In Joshua chapter 5 verse 1 we see the deeds of God were so great that the people of Canaan had no ability in their spirit to stand against the people of God. Their spirits just failed them.

They were afraid. They did not have any spirit in them any longer. Their heart melted. That's the basic idea. And thirdly, the third element of this social collapse is that He will give them a cruel master, verse 4, and the Egyptians I will give into the hand of a cruel master, and a fierce king will rule over them, says the Lord, the Lord of hosts.

All of these judgments, these elements of social collapse, though, they're just examples of the way that God is striking Egypt to heal Egypt. You might ask, what kind of social collapse do you see in your own society? God brings social collapse in order to drive people to Himself, to show them how bankrupt the world is, and how they've misjudged the situation, and they've leaned on something they should not have leaned. And then fourth, there's economic collapse in verses 5 through 10. Now here you find the agriculture is destroyed and there are three main elements of the economic collapse here as well.

First of all in verses 5 through 7 he will control the controller of the economy. He does this by drying up the Nile and stopping up the commerce. He goes really to the heart of the economy and then it causes a toppling of everything else. I mean, God is in control of the economy. God controls every economy of every nation in the world.

Don't be misled about that. And he here goes to the heart of the Egyptian economy, and that is the Nile River. You might ask, what is it that props up the stock market today? What is it? It's the finger of God.

It's the finger of God who makes it go up and makes it go down. And what is the primary force that makes it go up and down? Well, there probably are a few. I'll mention one of the prominent forces that makes the stock market go up and down. It's one word.

It's one four-letter word. Fear. It's fear. God controls the hearts and the fears of every person in the world and he makes them paranoid. He gives them a sense of dread and foreboding that something terrible might happen to them and so they respond in fear.

Well it's not the only way that they respond. They respond by looking at various numbers and calculating moves that might be made as a result. But I think it could be argued that really the heart of the movements that you see in the stock market goes back to fear. It's the fear of man. And it's God who controls the fear of man.

God controls the very essence, the elemental aspects of the economy. You should never fear what happens in the economy. God is in control of the economy. And here, we find that God is going after the physical heart and soul of the Egyptian economy, the Nile River. And you see that he takes down the fishing industry in verse 8.

The fishermen also will mourn. All those will lament who cast hooks into the river. And they will languish who spread nets on the water. So the whole fishing industry is going to come to a standstill, and their whole livelihood will disappear. And they will mourn.

There are very few things that are as hard on a man for him to be out of work. He mourns. Show me a man who's out of work And pretty much most of the time you're going to find a man who's mourning. And he'll mourn ten different things. He won't just mourn that he's out of work.

He'll mourn ten other things that are related to that. And this is what we see here. There are three words that Isaiah uses to describe this. Mourn, lament, and languish. Now to languish in the Hebrew means to droop, to go feeble, to even lose your desire for work.

This is what happens when you find yourself being out of work. It's the hardest thing a man faces, to not know what he's supposed to do next. You know, men need a fire on their feet to keep them moving, to keep them praying, to keep them engaged. But when they're out of work, it's very, very difficult. You should always pray for men who are out of work.

It's a very, very hard time. It's very discouraging. I've never known a man who's out of work that didn't get discouraged, sometimes very discouraged. That's why when we gather together to pray, we always pray for the men who might have found themselves out of work. It's so important that we do that, that we uphold them, that we bless them, that we encourage them.

Because this is what happens. You mourn, you lament, you languish when you're out of work. And then another element of this economic collapse is that God will unravel the textile industry in verses 9 through 10. Moreover, those who work in fine flax and those who weave fine fabric will be ashamed, and its foundations will be broken. All who make wages will be troubled of soul." So you have the textile industry collapsing and and they can't make anything right and then even those who make wages who go to work for someone else, they will be troubled of soul because there's just not enough money around.

They're being laid off because there's no money in the economy. God has dried it up. He has touched the nerve center of the Egyptian economy. They're troubled of soul. And then fifthly you find this political collapse.

Not only is there social collapse, not only is there economic collapse, there's also political collapse in verses 11 through 16. This happens because of a delusion that God brings upon the counselors of Egypt. Verse 11, Surely the princes of Zohan are fools. Pharaoh's wise counselors give foolish counsel. How do you say to Pharaoh, I am the son of the wise, the son of ancient kings?

Where are they? Where are your wise men? Let them tell you now, and let them know that the Lord of hosts has purposed against Egypt. The princes of Zoan have become fools. The princes of Noth are deceived.

They are also deluded. They have also deluded Egypt. Those who are the mainstay of its tribes. The Lord has mingled a perverse spirit in their midst. They have caused Egypt to err in all her work as a drunken man staggers in his vomit.

Neither will there be any work for Egypt, for the head or tail, in other words, for the leader or for the follower. The palm branch, the one that's high and lifted up, or the one at the bottom, the bull rush may do. You know, Psalm 22 says, the kingdom is the Lord's and He rules over the nations. And here He's ruling over the economic collapse that's taking place in Egypt. They're getting foolish counsel, they're perverse, they're harmful.

It's a terrible situation from the top to the bottom. Things are not right at all. God is taking away the wise leaders. We saw this in the judgment against Judah where God took away not only the stock and the store, but He also took away the wisemen from the nation. This is how God judges a nation.

You don't find very many wise people there. You can always tell when God is judging your nation, when the wisdom has gone. God is in control. God is in control of the economy. God is in control of the political scene as well.

You know, the Bible says that it was the Lord who prospered Joseph. The Bible says that it's God and God alone who gives you the power to make money. It's God who rules all these things. God sways the will of man. God controls the councils of men.

I hope we as a church can understand that. John Calvin said it this way, whatever poison Satan produces, God turns it into medicine for his elect. Well, that's the point. God is poisoning the counselors of Egypt so that he would save some of them. Whatever are your defeats, whatever burden you're suffering, whatever persecutions, whatever sorrows, whatever impossibilities, these things God has appointed for you to glorify Himself, to save you from yourself and your own wisdom, to cry out to Him, to lift up your eyes unto the hills from which your help comes.

God does not afflict his people needlessly and he wasn't afflicting Egypt needlessly at all. He causes all things to work together for good and here's how he does it. He does it in the right sequence. He does it in the right sequence. He does it in the right season.

He does it at the exact right time. He does it with the right intensity. He does it by the right people. He does it for the right length of time and not for a second longer. You might be afflicted right now, but just recognize this.

You will not be afflicted one second longer than you need to be because God is sovereign. He's sovereign over judgment, and he does it to glorify himself and to cause sinners to repent and turn toward him. All of this in order to strike us, to heal us, to wean us from this world, to demonstrate that this world is not our home, to exalt Him in our hearts and in our families and in our churches and in our nation and in the world. John Calvin also said of the providence of God, There is nothing more calculated to increase our faith than the knowledge of the providence of God, because without it we would be harassed with doubts and fears, being uncertain whether or not the world was governed by chance. And it is not governed by chance.

And the striking of Egypt is for the purpose of Egypt's healing. And then finally we come to the healing. Remember this passage is broken up into two sections. The striking, verses 1 through 15, and then the healing in verses 16 through 25. Alec Mautier, the Isaiah commentator, says this.

I thought this was a very insightful statement. God picks the unlikeliest candidate to receive salvation. Egypt. Egypt will be healed. There are ten signs of their salvation.

I'll give them to you one by one The first sign is that he will cause the Egyptians to fear him verses 16 and 17 in that day Egypt will be like women and and will be afraid and fear because of the waving of the hand of the Lord of hosts, which He waves over it. Now there are two reasons that there is fear. The striking produced fear. That's a good thing. The bad news has to proceed, the good news.

You will never be saved unless you understand the bad news of God's judgment. And that's what we see here. But the first thing that causes fear is His hand. His hand is stretched out still. Remember Isaiah has been saying that previously.

His hand is stretched out still and they see that and they're trembling, they're quaking. It says they're like women. Women are more naturally afraid. That is true. Generally it's true.

But salvation begins with fear. Also there's another source of this fear, not just because God has stretched out his hand against Egypt, but because of God's judgment against Judah. That's in verse 17. And the land of Judah will be a terror to Egypt. Got that?

Judah, the whole prospect of what's happening in Judah is a terror to Egypt. They look at Judah and it takes their breath away when they see the judgment that has come upon Judah. They're looking at what God has done to another nation. And everyone who makes mention of it, Judah, will be afraid in himself because of the counsel of the Lord of hosts, which he has determined against it." That's Judah. So there are two reasons that they are afraid.

One is that God has struck them, Egypt, and secondly because God struck Judah. So Egypt is terrified because of this judgment. The second sign of salvation is that the Egyptians will speak the language of heaven, verse 18, And in that day five cities in the land of Egypt will speak the language of Canaan and Swear by the Lord of hosts One will be called the city of destruction so you have five cities plus one city The these five cities will speak the language of Canaan. Canaan is a picture of heaven. They'll be speaking the language of heaven.

They'll be going into Canaan's land and speaking the language of God. They'll speak the words of God. They'll love to say the words of God. Out from their hearts, they will say the words of God and love them. And then there's a city of destruction.

The third sign of salvation is that the Egyptians will set up an altar in the middle of the land, verse 19. In that day there will be an altar to the Lord in the midst of the land of Egypt. That means that they'll worship. They will take action and set up an altar because of their love for God. They want to stop their lives and worship God.

They're so taken by the love of God that they make an altar and they worship there. And The fourth sign of salvation is that they'll set up a pillar at the border, verse 19, and a pillar to the Lord at its border. In other words, to say to everyone coming in, the Lord is here, the Lord is near. This is evangelism. This is speaking of the greatness of God.

And the fifth sign of their salvation is that they will cry to the Lord. Verse 20. And it will be for a sign for a witness to the Lord of hosts in the land of Egypt. For they will cry to the Lord because of their oppressors. Now two things I want us to get here.

They're crying to the Lord, but Isaiah tells us why. Why did they cry to the Lord? Because of their oppressors. So something good happens out of something bad that happened. That's the idea.

They were oppressed, that was bad, but something good happened, they cried out to the Lord. And this means that oppressors can be a good thing for the people of God, and you should never despise an oppressor. Jesus said, rejoice and be glad, for your reward in heaven is great. Because It is good to have an oppressor if they cause you to cry out to God. If you have an oppressor, it surely is a blessing from heaven.

Maybe someone's trying to rip you off. Maybe someone is cursing you behind your back or maybe to your face. Recognize why God has sent them there. He sent them there so you would cry out to God, depend upon God, love God, trust God. Find all of your solace in God and in God alone that you would not trust the voice of man at all, but only God.

Oppressors stimulate something wonderful in the heart of a true believer. Oppressors cause us to seek the only one who can satisfy. So I just want to ask is there any oppressor in your life? Are you being oppressed by a particular person? It could be a boss who is oppressing you.

It could be a husband who's oppressing you. It could be a wife who is oppressing you. It could be someone in your church or someone else who is oppressing you. Why? Why?

Why are there oppressors? Who is your oppressor and why did God raise up such an oppressor? He did it to heal you. He did it to drive you to Himself. He gave you oppression so that you would cry out to Him.

You know, there's nothing that's a greater hedge against bitterness than understanding that. To know that God does cause all things to work together for good, even your oppressors. What a blessing it is to know the Lord. So, we always have various responsibilities toward our oppressors. There are two responsibilities when we're faced with oppressors.

First of all, Isaiah chapter 1 says to rebuke the oppressor. Second, in 19 we learn to cry out because of our oppressor. The sixth sign of salvation is in the middle of verse 20. The Egyptians will be delivered by a Savior, and we'll send them a Savior and a mighty one, and He will deliver them. They will have a Savior.

That Savior is the Lord Jesus Christ. In the historical context, in the way that Isaiah constantly uses the language of salvation. This is the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. And then the seventh sign of salvation is that the Egyptians will know the Lord. Verse 21, Then the Lord will be known to Egypt and the Egyptians will know the Lord in that day.

They will know Him. Not just about Him, they'll know Him. They'll have an experiential knowledge. They will have knowledge that soothes their soul, that makes them happy, that teaches them wisdom. They will know the Lord that way.

The eighth sign of salvation is in verse 21. The Egyptians will make sacrifices to the Lord and will make sacrifice and offering. In other words, they will bring their gifts to the Lord. It will cost them something, but they will love to pay the cost. And they'll bring sacrifices.

The sacrifices of God are a humble and broken spirit. The sacrifices of God are our resources. We learned from the Apostle Paul that the sacrifices of God really are summed up in one thing by bringing your whole body, submitting your whole body as a living sacrifice to God. In other words, there's nothing in your life that you don't want God to take control of. You desire His Lordship in everything.

You know that you don't have it, and you are a little afraid, but you know that He is good, and you cry out to Him to invade those corners of your lives that are still marked with sin. But the Egyptians will make sacrifices to the Lord. The ninth sign of salvation is that they will take vows to the Lord. Verse 21, they will make vows to the Lord. In other words, they will come into the presence of God and they will see what God has said to them, and they will say, I want to do that.

I'm going to go do that. And they make vows. They actually change their life. They do something about what they hear. They're not just hearers of the Word, they're doers of the Word.

And they make vows to the Lord. This practice has fallen out of favor in the modern church. Hardly anybody takes vows anymore as a result of their hearing the Word of God. I mean, here's a question. What vows might you take today as a result of hearing the Word of God?

God has spoken to your heart in some way about something and you say, Oh Lord, you're speaking to me. Let me know. Go now and make this change in my life. I take a vow before you, oh Lord. And then the tenth sign of salvation is that they will return to the Lord, verse 22.

And the Lord will strike Egypt, He will strike and heal it. They will return to the Lord, and He will be entreated by them and heal them. Here's this beautiful picture of returning to the Lord to be healed. All of the striking have had one purpose, to heal them, and that they would cry out, that He would be entreated by them. In other words, there would be a relationship.

In other words, you would speak to Him. He struck you so that you would open your mouth and speak to Him and you would entreat Him. You would bring Him into your life and He would heal you. And then you see that the result of this is that the Egyptians will love the Assyrians and they will visit them in verse 23. In that day there will be a highway from Egypt to Assyria and the Assyrian will come into Egypt and the Egyptian into Assyria and the Egyptians will serve with the Assyrians.

Well now you have a people who come together, a people who hated one another, now They love one another and they visit one another and they bless one another and they are blessed of the Lord and there's a highway between them And they are blessed verse 24 in That day Israel will be one with Egypt and Assyria, a blessing in the midst of the land, whom the Lord of hosts shall bless, saying, Blessed is Egypt, my people, and Assyria, the work of my hands, and Israel, my inheritance. Now you have those who feared one another and who made war against one another and sought refuge and now they love one another. Egypt and Judah and Assyria now instead of being at odds, the Gospel has brought them together. It is the Gospel that makes peace between them. And He brings people together from every tongue and tribe and nation.

Every shade of people, every culture, from every part of the world. God makes peace between these people. This is the power of the Gospel. That you have brothers and sisters all over the world, maybe from Assyria, maybe from Egypt, maybe from Babylon. But because of the Lord Jesus Christ, you're at peace with them and you love them and you've made, and there's a highway between you and them and you visit them and you're not at aught against your brother who's a different shade or of a different culture or of a different country.

This is the power of the gospel, working through Egypt, every tongue and tribe and nation. Well here's a summary. First of all, God prepares people for repentance by striking them. Second, He strikes them where it hurts, in their pocketbooks and in their plans. And then thirdly, they're healed.

Because the striking caused them to start fearing, and then they were healed. That's the summary. Now let me give you some applications. First of all, just very quickly, there's wisdom here for how to interpret world events. You know, you who read the news know that there are threatening portents of what's going on in the world and wars and rumors of wars and political maneuverings and things like that.

As you read about these things, don't waste your anxiety. Take note of them. You may do something about it, but don't worry too much about it. God is in control. Secondly, there's wisdom for how to grapple with worries about the economy.

God is controlling the economy. God controls the fears of every man. God controls all the numbers. And here we find the fishing and the farming and the textiles and the worker bees. The whole supply chain is under God's governance.

God governs every single element of the supply chain. Do you understand that? It might dry up, and if it does, you want to know how it happened? God did it. Rejoice in the Lord.

He's done it in order to heal. We also should use this to reflect upon our own trials. Take note of any of the foundations that are being removed from your life, you know? What is He trying to show you? What are you trusting in?

God desires to strike our idols. God desires to take out our props so that we would trust in Him and find all of our happiness in Him. You can't have a happy people until their props are knocked out. Maybe God's knocking your props out in a particular way. I'm pretty sure most of the time God is in the business of knocking a prop out of every person in the room.

Maybe it's a big one, maybe it's a little one, but he's knocking out props if you're a Christian. And if you're not, He's going to knock out profs in order to draw you to repentance. He strikes before He saves. He burdens before He blesses. He hurts before He heals.

You know, Imagine what it would be like if God healed our nation. What would it take? What kind of judgment would it take? What kind of striking would it take? And let's don't forget that this is Egypt.

You might think America's too far gone. Not true. There is no nation that's too far gone. If someone says that, they do not understand the power and the might of God. God saves people out of Egypt.

He takes the worst oppressor of God's people and transforms some of them. So I think we should consider how He is hurting us, because He hurts before He heals, and He condemns before He comforts, and He wounds before He recovers, and he terrifies before he triumphs, and he kills with the law before he saves by his grace. And the sword of the Spirit pierces, but it lances your wound so that you can heal. I just want everybody in this church to be put on notice by Isaiah 19, that He is striking us to heal us. Would you pray with me?

Oh Lord, we thank you for your mercy, the mercy of your Son, who would come in with healing in his wings after the striking, that he would come and rebuke us and then restore us. Oh Lord, I thank you. Amen.