The Healing of the Nations
August 22, 2021
Preached by Mike Aiken
Scripture Reading
Isaiah 19:16-25
16 In that day the Egyptians will be like women, and tremble with fear before the hand that the Lord of hosts shakes over them. 17 And the land of Judah will become a terror to the Egyptians. Everyone to whom it is mentioned will fear because of the purpose that the Lord of hosts has purposed against them.
18 In that day there will be five cities in the land of Egypt that speak the language of Canaan and swear allegiance to the Lord of hosts. One of these will be called the City of Destruction.
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 at its border. 20 It will be a sign and a witness to the Lord of hosts in the land of Egypt. When they cry to the Lordbecause of oppressors, he will send them a savior and defender, and deliver them. 21 And the Lord will make himself known to the Egyptians, and the Egyptians will know the Lord in that day and worship with sacrifice and offering, and they will make vows to the Lord and perform them. 22 And the Lord will strike Egypt, striking and healing, and they will return to the Lord, and he will listen to their pleas for mercy and heal them.
23 In that day there will be a highway from Egypt to Assyria, and Assyria will come into Egypt, and Egypt into Assyria, and the Egyptians will worship with the Assyrians.
24 In that day Israel will be the third with Egypt and Assyria, a blessing in the midst of the earth, 25 whom the Lord of hosts has blessed, saying, “Blessed be Egypt my people, and Assyria the work of my hands, and Israel my inheritance.”
I wonder how many of you have been to the beach this summer. Even if you haven’t this year, I would assume many of you have been to the ocean and enjoyed the experience of riding the waves. I recall many times having the experience of riding a good wave and then after it was done having another wave come upon me. In the passage that was read today we see wave upon wave coming upon of all people, the Egyptians. The first wave in verses 16-17 is a wave of judgment but it is transitional and bridges the judgements in verses 1-15 which are all in poetic form but now in verses 16-25 we have Isaiah writing his prophesy in prose (take note to have this is done in the ESV or any new translation). We move in the first wave from the judgment of Egypt to the blessing on Egypt and not just Egypt but all the nations.
As we go through these 5 waves there will be many questions. One question is when will this occur? “In that day” is repeated 6 times. “In that day” is referring to the Day of the LORD’S judgment and blessing. It is a future period of time we are still waiting for. When will this occur? When Jesus, God’s only begotten Son, returns as he has promised. He will return in judgment and blessing. The other thing I want you to notice is who the Lord is in these waves. He is the sovereign LORD over the nations and his eternal purpose will stand. No human nation can stop God’s plan and purpose for the nations. In history God’s sovereign will is being worked out. God is not passively waiting anxiously to see what we will do. No, God’s missions are being worked out in redemptive history which spans from the fall of Adam into sin in which he plunged the whole human race under the wrath of God to the return of the 2nd Adam, Jesus Christ. I also want you to see that our God is great and good as the children’s prayer so aptly says. God’s greatness is seen in his power, he is the Almighty. His goodness is seen in his grace and mercy to us sinners. God’s greatness and goodness are seen in his healing the nations.
In wave #1 (vv. 16-17) we see the Egyptians in terror, trembling in fear. Why? “because of the purpose that the LORD of hosts has purposed against them (v. 17b).” What all nations need to see is that they are accountable to a holy God and are in danger of judgment. God’s judgment is just and this God who is in control of all things has planned a day when he will bring all nations under his judgment where every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father (cf. Isa. 45:23). I wanted you to see who God is in this passage and we see his greatness reflected in his power to carry out judgment and cause the nations to tremble. I say this to encourage us that we should fear the Lord who has the power to destroy both body and soul and to not fear people who do not have that ability. The Lord alone is worthy of our worship and devotion.
Wave #2- In these next 4 waves I want you to see something astonishing (ie. Shocking). The Egyptians who were God’s enemies and not his people turn to the Lord and are now called God’s people. We will see this in different ways in the next 4 waves. Let’s read wave #2 (v.18). “In that day there will be five cities in the land of Egypt that speak the language of Canaan and swear allegiance to the LORD of hosts. One of these will be called the City of Destruction.” The Egyptians will repent of their idolatry (false worship of finite gods) and turn to the only true and living God- Yahweh. This is shocking or is it? It is and yet if we know our Bibles and God’s promises found in his covenants we are not shocked. In the New Testament we learn of the mystery of Jesus Christ that was revealed to his holy apostles and prophets found in Ephesians 3:6 “that the Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel.” As we look at the next waves we will see covenantal language. A covenant is how God, our creator, relates to us. One of the basic promises of the covenant is that “God will be our God and we will be his people” (Jer. 31:33). The other big promise of the new covenant is that God will forgive our sins (Jer. 31:34).
In this second wave when it says the Egyptians will “speak the language of Canaan” it is pointing to their conversion to the true God. This is also pointing to the tower of babel where language was unified to worship false gods. The tower building of the one people was wanting to make a name for itself in defiance to what God said in Genesis 9:1 to fill the earth. They defied that and sought to build a tower upward which was a place of worship. God came down in judgment and confused their languages. Here in this 2nd wave we see a unified language where God is worshipped instead of being defied.
In the third wave, the longest, there is a beautiful picture of God healing the Egyptians. All of this is fulfilling God’s covenant promise to Abram where he said to Abram, “I will bless those who bless you and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed (Gen. 12:3).” Verse 22 is a good summary of this entire chapter. God judges and God heals. What God purposes happens.
In the fourth wave we see a picture of peace with the image of a highway going from one enemy nation (Assyria) to another enemy nation (Egypt) with Israel in the middle. Notice that these three nations are worshipping the one true living God. Our triune God- Father, Son and Holy Spirit is being worshipped by the Assyrians, the Egyptians and the Israelites. These nations were once enemies but are now brothers in the Lord. They are unified in the gospel of Jesus Christ. The gospel when preached calls people to repent of their idolatry and to worship the one true and living God. Jesus when he spoke to the Samaritan woman said, “believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth. The woman said to him, ‘I know that Messiah is coming (he who is called Christ). When he comes, he will tell us all things.’ Jesus said to her, ‘I who speak to you am he’” (John 4:21-26). The Samaritan women then goes into the town of Samaria and tells everyone she can about Jesus saying, “Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ?” We learn that many Samaritans came to believe in Jesus because of this woman’s testimony. “Many Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, ‘He told me all that I ever did.’” (John 4:39).
The fifth and last wave is like icing on the cake of God’s blessing. It is a closing benediction on the nations. When God targets something, it happens. What is impossible with man is possible with God. God is targeting the nations for healing and we can be sure that it will come about. It is surprising that Israel’s enemies, Assyria and Egypt are now God’s people. Notice what God calls them. They along with Israel are a “blessing in the midst of the earth, whom the LORD of hosts has blessed saying, ‘Blessed be Egypt my people, and Assyria the work of my hand, and Israel my inheritance” (vv.24b-25).
Surprising and shocking works of God’s grace. Do you have people in your life that seem impossible to reach for Christ? They are difficult to talk to and they are very committed to a non-Christian worldview. They may be an atheist or an alcoholic. They may be very committed to a lifestyle of sexual sin and are hard of heart and not open to hear the gospel. They may be a spouse, a child, a parent, a friend, coworker, or neighbor. We should be encouraged that what is impossible with man is possible with God. I recently was reconnected with a young man who was difficult in many ways. He professed Jesus but then went off the rails so to speak. I was his tennis coach at the Christian school for a year or two and then he left the school. He went into the Navy and then got involved with the wrong crowd. He was selling drugs and was involved in an incident with a gun that was shot and he ended up in prison for at least two years. Back in May of this year he contacted me and asked if I would do his wedding with his fiancé. I agreed to meet with him and his fiancé and was amazed at the work God had done in his life. His parents prayed for him often and I prayed for him as well during his difficult time in prison. On July 30th I did the wedding ceremony for him and his fiancé. The premarital meetings I had with the two of them were encouraging. They are both committed to the Lord and are faithfully following him now. This young man is a trophy of God’s grace. We all are trophies of God’s amazing grace because left to ourselves we would never repent of our sins and believe in Jesus. I bring this up because we often think people are not going to repent and turn to God. Do not give up in your praying for your lost friends and loved ones and people you are trying to reach for Christ. Share the gospel as you are able and pray for them regularly. We trust God to bring about genuine conversions to himself. At the proper time God will bring about the healing of the nations that our passage teaches.
God has called us as his church to faithfully carry out this very clear mission found in Matthew 28:18-20: “And Jesus came and said to them, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.’” Later in this service we will learn of a new people group that our church will be supporting for gospel ministry.
