God's Glory Is His Alone

And I'll ask you to remain standing in honor of God's Word. And if you'd please turn with me to Ezekiel chapter 29, as we resume our journey through this epic book of judgment and blessing. We're in the middle of a section in the book of Ezekiel that is addressed to the foreign nations that neighbor Israel. And tonight we come to the last nation that's mentioned, the nation that was a perennial enemy of Israel.

Of course, we're speaking of the nation of Egypt. We're going to look tonight at chapters 29 through 32. Let's begin by first just reading chapter 29 verses 1 through 5, and then we'll skip down and read verses 15 and 16. Ezekiel 29 verse 1.

In the 10th year, in the 10th month, on the 12th day of the month, the word of the Lord came to me. Son of man, set your face against Pharaoh, king of Egypt, and prophesy against him and against all Egypt. Speak and say, Thus says the Lord God, Behold, I am against you, Pharaoh, king of Egypt, the great dragon that lies in the midst of his streams, that says, My Nile is my own.

I made it for myself. I will put hooks in your jaws and make the fish of your streams stick to your scales, and I will draw you up out of the midst of your streams with all the fish of your streams that stick to your scales, and I will cast you into the wilderness, you and all the fish of your streams. You shall fall on the open field and not be brought together or gathered to the beasts of the earth and to the birds of the heaven I give you as food. And then skipping down to verse 15, it, referring to Egypt, shall be the most lowly of the kingdoms and never again exalt itself above the nations, and I will make them so small that they will never again rule over the nations, and it shall never again be the reliance of the house of Israel, recalling their iniquity when they turn to them for aid, then they will know that I am the Lord God. It's the word of the Lord.

Let's pray. Father, our enemies would have us forsake you and rely on them, our idols, try to supplant your place of preeminence in our hearts, but Lord, those same enemies, those idols will ultimately be judged by you and destroyed by you, and if we find ourselves leaning on them when that happens, we'll fall with them. We ask you that you would help us to forsake the horses and chariots that we're so prone to run to, enable us to look to you and rely on your strength and live by every word that proceeds from your mouth. Open our eyes now, Holy Spirit, enable us to love these words and understand them and obey them in faith. I pray in Jesus' name. Amen.

You can be seated. When I was in the seventh grade, my parents allowed me to spend a week at a summer camp for boys. It was a great camp full of boys doing boy things in the woods. We went whitewater rafting. We completed obstacle courses.

We learned how to start a fire, cook a meal over the fire, but the most memorable activity for me that summer was rappelling from the top of a 70-foot cliff. I remember it was 70 feet because I have an almost manageable fear of heights, but not quite. I don't care for high places. I can handle a six-foot ladder. I can handle a nine-foot ladder.

I can sort of handle standing on a flat roof, but I start getting weak in the knees on a pitched roof. So a 70-foot cliff is not exactly my happy place, but on this particular afternoon with all my newly made friends at camp watching and willingly going over the edge of the cliff, I really didn't have a choice. It was either face my fear of heights or endure the ridicule of seventh grade boys for the rest of the week. So I put on the harness and all the gear, and I began to walk backwards towards the edge of this drop-off, and I can still remember getting to that point where my next step would require total trust in the harness and the ropes and the counselor who was holding the safety rope and the tree around which the safety rope was wound. One more step and my survival would be entirely in someone else's hands. It was terrifying to me, but I finally worked up my nerve and took that step, and there I found myself standing at a 45-degree angle suspended 70 feet off the ground, being lowered down by this rope that was no bigger than my thumb. It required absolute trust in something outside of myself, something beyond my control, something that I couldn't even see once I had stepped off the top of the cliff.

You know, life is full of 70-foot cliffs that aren't safe or predictable. Life often demands that we put our trust in things outside of ourselves, beyond our control, out of our line of sight. In fact, the Christian life is entirely a life of faith rather than sight, Scripture says, and it can be uncertain and frightening at times.

Let's be honest, it can be downright terrifying to have to entrust ourselves to that which we cannot see. Faith can be a fearful path to walk, and yet it is the very path that God calls us to as His children. He tells us when the world is being turned upside down to be still and know that He is God. He tells us to trust in Him with all our heart and not to lean on our own understanding.

He tells us that rather than laboring and being heavily burdened, we ought to come to Him and find rest for our souls. The Christian life is nothing less than a life of trusting an invisible God. And we all nod and we say, Amen, but when it's actually time to go over the edge of the cliff, we hesitate, we doubt, we pause, we think, maybe I better get another rope just in case God isn't really holding me, just in case He's preoccupied or disinterested or angry at me. We stop trusting God and we somehow start trusting ourselves or our friends or our wealth or our whatever, because it somehow feels safer to rely on what I can see than that which I think I can control. We're not the first generation of Christians to feel this way or act this way.

This inability to trust God, this self-reliant spirit has been with Adam's race from the very beginning. In fact, these chapters in Ezekiel, chapters 29 through 32, tell the story of this very tendency of distrusting God as it played itself out in the old covenant community of Israel. And we're going to see from these four chapters that God will go to extraordinary measures to ensure that His children trust Him because He alone is trustworthy. Now we've been making our way through the book of Ezekiel at a fairly fast pace. I'm not trying to cover every verse in this very long book. Instead, I'm just trying to give us an overarching scope, kind of the big picture of this book. And then as you go back through Ezekiel on your own, verse by verse, you'll be able hopefully to better understand what's happening.

The finer details will come into focus because you've got the larger sweep of the book in view. So with that in mind, I'm only going to touch on a few key verses tonight, but my hope is that sometime this week you'll go home and read through all four of these chapters to get the full story. It's a very rich story, a story that reminds us of God's constant control of history and His constant faithfulness to His people. So let's jump in and we begin by noticing first God's displeasure with Egypt. God's displeasure with Egypt. Verse 3, Behold, I am against you, Pharaoh king of Egypt, the great dragon that lies in the midst of his streams that says, My Nile is my own.

I made it for myself. Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, is described as a dragon in a river, the Nile River. And this is probably a metaphorical hyperbolic description of one of those great crocodiles that commonly inhabited the Nile River and still inhabit that river to this day. Crocodiles were feared by Egyptians.

They were a threat to life and limb. And when a crocodile was around, people stayed away. There's an ancient document that interestingly makes the claim that the God of Egypt once said to Pharaoh, I caused the people to see thy majesty as a crocodile, the lord of fear in the water who cannot be approached. So this was the opinion of Pharaoh. So Ezekiel begins with a fitting description of Pharaoh as a crocodile in the Nile, a great dragon in the midst of his streams. But not only does Pharaoh pride himself in being that great dragon that instills fear in everyone, he also claims to be the very creator of the Nile. The source of Egypt's wealth was this great river. And Pharaoh, verse 3, makes the bold assertion that the Nile is his own, that he made it for himself.

I mean, this is the height of pride and arrogance. Pharaoh is making himself out to be a god, the creator of the Nile. He's instilling fear in everyone around him, pretending to be this invincible reptile. And in portraying himself this way, Pharaoh tempts Israel to do the unthinkable. In the face of the Babylonian threat that was coming, Pharaoh's cockiness and self-confidence tempts Israel, God's people, to run to Egypt. The Egyptians hated Israel.

They hated God. And yet here is Israel running to Egypt for protection because their fear of Babylon had gotten the best of them. Fear makes us do crazy things, doesn't it? Fear makes us unfaithful. Fear makes us go back on our word.

Fear makes us forget the sufficiency of God and entrust our safety to crocodiles. Fear has Israel looking to Egypt rather than to God for help. In fact, God's covenant people had a habit of relying on Egypt, and this time was no different. As Nebuchadnezzar and his army swarmed across the land and threatened even Jerusalem itself, Israel began looking for protection in Egypt. They entered into an alliance with Egypt, as many other nations had already done, but in the end, Egypt would prove to be an ineffective and even a harmful ally against the Babylonians.

Ezekiel 29.6 refers to Israel's futile reliance on Egypt. It says this, because you, Egypt, have been a staff of reed to the house of Israel. When they grasped you with a hand, you broke and tore all their shoulders.

And when they leaned on you, you broke and made all their loins to shake. God calls Egypt a staff of reeds. You know, a staff is something that's supposed to be stable. It's supposed to hold you up. It's supposed to be a support.

It's supposed to be reliable. But in Egypt's case, they were none of these things. Instead, God says Egypt was a staff of reed.

A reed is flimsy. It's easily broken. It's unreliable. And so when Israel needed support and protection, Egypt gave them nothing but disappointment and injury and defeat. Now, we need to remember Israel should not have gone down to Egypt for help. They should not have run to Egypt.

They were wrong in even looking to Egypt. And God will address Israel's sin. But at the moment, God is angry with Egypt and with Pharaoh, because while he claimed to be some great savior, he ultimately hurt the people, the children of God. I want to come back to this idea that even though Israel was also in the wrong, God runs to their defense.

So keep that in mind. But what was God going to do to wicked Pharaoh? Well, God doesn't stand by and let a mere man steal his glory.

He doesn't let creatures take the credit that belongs only to the Creator. He won't passively watch wicked kings and nations destroy his people. And so we see, secondly, God's judgment on Egypt. God's judgment on Egypt. First, God describes a crocodile hunt. Remember, Pharaoh is the crocodile in this analogy. And so a great crocodile hunt commences in Ezekiel 29. For God says, I will put hooks into your jaws and make the fish of your streams stick to your scales. I think that apparently refers to the nations that were allied with Egypt.

They would be dealt with along with Egypt. God says, and I will draw you up out of the midst of your streams with all the fish of your streams that stick to your scales. And I will cast you into the wilderness, you and all the fish of your streams. You shall fall on the open field and not be brought together or gathered. To the beasts of the earth and to the birds of the heavens, I give you as food. God gets a little more specific down in verse 9. Because you said, the Nile is mine and I made it. Therefore, behold, I am against you and against your streams. And I will make the land of Egypt an utter waste and desolation from Migdal to Syene. That's from the far north of Egypt to the far south. So God's judgment is going to be complete.

It's comprehensive. At the very point of Pharaoh's pride, which was his strength and his wealth, God will bring him down along with all those who were allied to that strength and wealth. But then God uses another metaphor, not the crocodile of the Nile, but a giant tree that seems invincible.

We see this in chapter 31. And just as the crocodile metaphor ends with the crocodile hunt and a killing, so the tree metaphor ends with the tree felling. One theologian said that in chapter 31, Egypt is a great world tree that's about to be chopped down by the cosmic lumberjack. The metaphor begins by describing Assyria, which was the previous superpower that defeated the northern 10 tribes of Israel years earlier. Assyria as a giant tree that was beautiful and healthy. It provided homes for birds and beasts and under its shadow lived all the great nations of the earth. Verse 9, it says that even the trees of Eden envied it.

But then this seemingly invincible tree is suddenly cut down. Ezekiel 31, 10, therefore, thus says the Lord God, because it towered high and set its top among the clouds and its heart was proud of its height. I, God, will give it into the hand of a mighty one of the nations. That is, God will give mighty Assyria to Babylon for destruction. He shall surely deal with it as its wickedness deserves.

I have cast it out. Foreigners, the most ruthless of nations, have it cut down and left it. All of this then is foreshadowing what's gonna happen to Egypt. If such a thing can happen to the likes of Assyria, then it can certainly happen to Egypt as well. Ezekiel 31, 18, whom are you, Pharaoh, thus like in glory and in greatness among the trees of Eden? You shall be brought down with the trees of Eden to the world below.

You shall lie among the uncircumcised with those who are slain by the sword. This is Pharaoh, and all his multitude declares the Lord God. So Pharaoh has put himself in the place of God by claiming to be the creator, by claiming to be the source of wealth. He has put himself in the place of God by trying to portray himself as the savior of the world.

And many nations have taken the bait, including God's own people, the Israelites. God cannot stand by. He will not stand by and let a mere man steal his glory and steal the affections and loyalties of his own children. And so God declares his opposition to Pharaoh. If Pharaoh is a crocodile, God is a crocodile hunter. If Pharaoh is a giant tree, then God is a chainsaw.

Egypt will be cut down to size and put in its place. And why is God going to do this? What is, thirdly, God's purpose in all of this? His purpose is to defend his own glory by first conquering those who would rob him of his glory and secondly by revealing the graciousness of his character to his covenant people. God does not share his glory with anyone, nor does he share his people with anyone.

His glory is his alone. His people are his alone. And so both Egypt and Israel need to be put in their place.

They need to be put in their respective places. Egypt needs to be put in its place, which is a place of destruction, but Israel also needs to be put in its place, which is a place, as we'll see, of trusting fully in the goodness of God. As we look at the specifics of God's judgment against Egypt, we notice that it's very harsh, without mercy. There's no hope offered to Egypt. For example, in Ezekiel 30, verse 21, we see God breaking one of Pharaoh's arms, and then in the very next verse, God breaks Pharaoh's other arm, and then for good measure, he goes back and breaks the first broken arm again. There's no recovery for Pharaoh.

He has crossed a line that sinners simply don't come back from. He has tried to supplant God, and God will have none of it. Ezekiel 30, verses 23 through 26, describe how God, who breaks Pharaoh's arm, will strengthen Babylon's arms, resulting in the scattering, or the exile, of the Egyptians.

This presents us with a very interesting pecking order, doesn't it? Israel runs to Egypt, because Egypt is stronger than Israel, but then Egypt falls to Babylon, because Babylon is stronger than Egypt. Now we learn that Babylon is merely a pawn in God's hands, doing his bidding, because God's stronger than all of them. He's the king.

He's the one with all the glory. The final word in this section of Ezekiel is found in chapter 32, verses 17 through 32, and this section is perhaps the most frightening of them all. The location is, verse 18, the world below, the place of the dead, the pit. Verse 18 says, Son of man, wail over the multitude of Egypt, and send them down, her and the daughters of majestic nations, to the world below, to those who go down to the pit. So Egypt is, in the end, sent down to this pit of dead things, and who do we find already there? Assyria, verse 22, and Elam, verse 24, Meshech, Tubal is there, verse 26, and Edom, verse 29.

The Sidonians are there, verse 30. In fact, all the nations who have exalted themselves against God and his people have been condemned to this place of misery and death. And so with the tone of what can only be called divine sarcasm, Ezekiel 32, verse 31 says, when Pharaoh sees all of these like-minded wicked nations, he will be comforted for all his multitude. It's as if God is saying misery loves company, and Egypt will certainly have plenty of company in this pit of divine judgment. It's frightening, it's awful, it's dreadful, but this is the consequence of taking for oneself the glory that belongs to God alone. God takes his glory very seriously, but as we've come to expect through our journey through the book of Ezekiel, there's a twist in the story.

God not only reveals his glory by punishing the guilty, he sometimes reveals his glory by redeeming the guilty. So not only does God reveal his glory by putting Egypt in its place, which is a place of destruction, he also reveals his glory by putting Israel in its place. And Israel's place is a beautiful place of restoration. You probably noticed by now that Egypt's punishment largely parallels what Israel has been going through for the first half of the book of Ezekiel. Israel had rebelled against God, God had allowed Jerusalem to fall to the Babylonians, and this led to the exile of the covenant community in a strange and foreign land.

All of these things are now happening to Egypt as well. But there's a notable difference between God's treatment of Israel and God's treatment of Egypt. After the time of exile, God would bring both Israel and Egypt back to their respective lands, but Egypt's restoration, if we can even call it that, would be a pathetic shadow of its former glory. Look with me at Ezekiel 29, verses 14-16. God says, I will restore the fortunes of Egypt and bring them back to the land of Pathros, the land of their origin, and there they shall be a lowly kingdom. It shall be the most lowly of the kingdoms and never again exalt itself above the nations.

And I will make them so small that they will never again rule over the nations. Now why would God even bother restoring Egypt at all? Ezekiel 29, 16 tells us. It was so that Israel would have a constant reminder of the senseless iniquity she had committed by ever turning to Egypt for aid at all. And a constant reminder would be a deterrent to Israel so that she would not repeat this sin ever again. Egypt, the giant crocodile, would become Egypt, the tiny lizard, to remind Israel to never look anywhere other than to their faithful omnipotent God for help. So Egypt's restoration was not so much an act of grace for Egypt as it was an act of grace for Israel, for God's people. A constant reminder not to repeat their former sins. So in the end, God's enemies are reined in, God's glory is revealed, and God's children are brought home.

Truly God goes to extraordinary measures to ensure that his children trust him because he is trustworthy. You know, Egypt today is just a shadow of what it once was. In our modern world, it's more or less just a spot for tourists and archaeologists, isn't it?

Nothing like the superpower that it once was. But the idolatry of self-sufficiency that Egypt embodied has not diminished, has it? That idol is still alive and well in our hearts. The temptation to trust in wealth and power, in credentials and talents and relationships and reputations is still alive, still active in the human heart. And when we attach ourselves to these impressive crocodiles, to these ginormous trees in ways that supersede our reliance on God, it will not go well for us. How do we overcome this tendency to run to Egypt instead of running to God? In short, we stop trusting Pharaoh, whoever or whatever that is in your life, and we start trusting God. But you know, I think that that phrase trusting God is kind of one of those churchy phrases perhaps that we affirm at one level, but we don't really stop and think about what it means and how it ought to play itself out in practical, concrete ways. What does trusting God practically entail? Well, trusting God means that I don't waste time defending my idols of self-reliance.

Instead, I acknowledge how weak and temporary those idols are. Trusting God means I fill my mind with thoughts of the faithfulness and the power and the wisdom of God. A person who is trusting the Lord is one who is constantly reorienting his or her life around anything God says in his word. If God says, be still, cease striving and know that I am God, and I continue striving and stressing about life's pressures, I'm not trusting him, I'm trusting me. If God issues a command and I disregard it or halfheartedly regard it or redefine it to suit me, I'm not trusting him, I'm trusting me. To trust God doesn't mean to talk about trusting God. It doesn't mean to merely affirm hypothetically theoretically that trusting him is good. It means to actually trust him, to step off the cliff of your own abilities and comfort zones and safety nets and start taking God at his word. I had a Christian brother say to me last week, there comes a point when we need to stop merely saying that God is sovereign and start acting like it. That is so true. And we could apply that principle to any of God's attributes, including his trustworthiness.

There comes a point when we need to stop saying that we trust God and start actually trusting him by obeying his commands, by resting in his promises, and by delighting in his presence. My seven-year-old daughter was standing on the countertop in the kitchen a few days ago. That's a normal thing in our home. And she decided to jump off.

That's not a normal thing in our home. And she just assumed that her older brother would see her and catch her. Well, her brother did see her and did catch her, thankfully. But you know, sometimes older brothers fail to catch presumptuous sisters. But brothers and sisters, when we belong to God and walk according to his ways, he never fails to see us and catch us. He is trustworthy, and so we need to trust him. Self-reliance to the neglect of trusting God is a very subtle sin at times, isn't it?

Sometimes it doesn't even feel like a sin. Sometimes it feels like zeal or hard work or initiative and dedication. And so we need to be aware of its subtleties. We need to be on guard against it.

We need to be sufficiently self-skeptical. How does sinful self-sufficiency creep into our lives? What is it? What does it look like?

Well, I'll tell you. It looks like Saul taking priestly matters into his own hands because Samuel was running late. Self-sufficiency looks like David taking a census when God said don't. It's Solomon thinking that he was strong enough to resist the false religions of his godless wives. It's the Jews selling out Jesus to Pilate because he was disrupting their political agenda. It's Peter caving to the pressure of the Judaizers and pretending that their false teaching was harmless. It's the Roman Catholic Church teaching their parishioners that penance rather than Christ is the key to salvation. It's Charles Finney relying on manipulative methods rather than relying on the clear, simple preaching of the gospel. It's liberal Christians relying on their good social works. It's fundamental Christians relying on their good moral works. It's you and me every time we put our hope of salvation in anything other than Jesus Christ and Him crucified.

That's what sinful self-sufficiency looks like. We run to Egypt when we should be running to the one who created Egypt and the one who judges Egypt and the one who brings Egypt to its knees. There's a passage in the book of Isaiah that every time I read it, it just cuts me to my heart with shame over how prone I am to this very problem of self-reliance to the neglect of simply trusting God. It's Isaiah 30 and 31. Don't turn there, but let me read several scattered verses from these two chapters because they closely parallel this section of Ezekiel that we've looked at tonight. Isaiah 30 begins by saying, ah, stubborn children, declares the Lord, who carry out a plan but not mine, who make an alliance but not of my spirit, that they may add sin to sin, who set out to go down to Egypt without asking for my direction to take refuge in the protection of Pharaoh and to seek shelter in the shadow of Egypt. And then God says, therefore shall the protection of Pharaoh that the thing you chose to trust instead of God will turn to your shame and the shelter in the shadow of Egypt will turn to your humiliation.

Isaiah 30 15 says, for thus said the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel, in returning and rest you shall be saved, in quietness and in trust shall be your strength, but you were unwilling. Oh, what peace we often forfeit, oh, what needless pain we bear, all because we do not carry everything to God in prayer, trusting and relying on the one who is eager to demonstrate his trustworthiness to us. So what are we to do with this debt of self-reliance that condemns us, that's robbed us of the quietness and peace and the blessing that God intends us to enjoy and that we often squander?

Here's what we do with it. We lay our sin of self-sufficiency at the feet of Jesus Christ and put our confidence in his righteousness to cover that sin. Jesus, like Israel, was tempted by a dragon. This dragon, like Pharaoh, said to Jesus, if you'll bow down and worship me, I'll give you anything you want, protection, wealth, power, glory. But unlike Israel, Jesus would not trust the dragon. He refused to rely on the devil and instead said to him, you shall worship the Lord your God and him only you shall serve.

He trusted God and got alone. And this evening, tonight, this same Jesus invites you and me, this faithless bunch of self-reliant idolaters, he invites us to forsake Egypt and find our rest in him. He willingly gives us the credit for resisting the dragon, even though he was the one who resisted the dragon.

And to all who receive and rest in this dragon slayer, he gives power to become sons of God. May we be among those who know the unshakable confidence of this confession. Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust the name of the Lord our God. Let's pray.

So you are trustworthy. We believe this. Help our unbelief. We pray for the sake of your glory and our peace.

Amen. Let's stand together as we close our day of worship and focus our hearts and minds, affections on a God who is beyond all praising, a God who is trustworthy even when we fail to trust him. Let's worship. O God, beyond all praising, we worship you today and sing the love amazing that songs cannot repay.

For we can only wonder at every gift you send, at blessings without number and mercies without end. We lift our hearts before you and wait upon your word. We honor and adore you, our great and mighty Lord. Then hear, O gracious Savior, accept the love we bring that we who know your favor may serve you as our King. And whether our tomorrows be filled with good or ill, we'll triumph through our sorrows and rise to bless you still, to marvel at your beauty and glory in your ways, and make a joyful duty a sacrifice of praise. Amen. Thank you for being here tonight. I hope to see you Wednesday night, seven o'clock for our midweek study. Bob, I believe I saw Lisa here tonight. It's good to have her back with you. We've been praying for her, and it's so great to see you.