There’s nothing new under the sun. A statement by King Solomon that is still valid today. History repeats itself. This also applies to the repeated apostasy of God’s people in Israel in the Old Testament. The prophet Isaiah thus announced a very visible parallel to the apostasy within God’s people today.
Inhalt / Content
- 1 From former faith to apostasy
- 2 Isaiah 30 – An example of apostasy
- 3 Egypt – The symbol of godlessness
- 4 Egypt has already been defeated in Zoan
- 5 Egypt and Babylon today
- 6 It is a spiritual (final) battle
- 7 Church is not automatically “body of Christ”
- 8 The false prophet
- 9 The North King and South King sit at the same table
- 10 Isaiah 30 – An example for the present
- 11 The gospel is rejected
From former faith to apostasy
True faith in God and His words is automatically linked to unconditional trust. Any doubt about the promises and promises of God is a sign of a lack of faith. The people of God in the Old Testament repeatedly strayed from the right path and obviously lost faith and therefore trust in God. One of the people’s central tasks given by God was to separate themselves from the other pagan nations in order to be able to set a great, shining example through a godly lifestyle.
By obedience, the people would have glorified God on the one hand and, on the other hand, the chosen people would have been able to prove to the Gentiles the only true and living God. At every stage in which God’s people walked according to His statutes, Israel prospered economically and in peace. Enemy states failed in any attempts at conquest or even had no plans for an attack. But all too often God’s people fell away from His statutes, slacked off in their faith and also brought parts of the pagan religions into their own ranks.
Isaiah 30 – An example of apostasy
By the time of the prophet Isaiah, the people of Israel had once again fallen away from God. This prophet lived to see the northern state of Israel with its capital Samaria and its fall in 721 BC by Sennacherib, the king of the Assyrians. The land of (northern) Israel under the last king Hosea had already fallen so far that God brought an end to the land and the city of Samaria after repeated chastisement. There still remained southern Judah with its capital Jerusalem and there the loyalty to God was no longer the best.
But before that, God gave a final warning and the promise that he would save Israel if it found its way back to the right path. Through the prophet Isaiah, God enumerated the grievances of the people of Israel.
Book of Isaiah 30:1-7:
1 Woe to the rebellious children, saith the LORD, that take counsel, but not of me; and that cover with a covering, but not of my spirit, that they may add sin to sin:
2 That walk to go down into Egypt, and have not asked at my mouth; to strengthen themselves in the strength of Pharaoh, and to trust in the shadow of Egypt!
3 Therefore shall the strength of Pharaoh be your shame, and the trust in the shadow of Egypt your confusion.
4 For his princes were at Zoan, and his ambassadors came to Hanes.
5 They were all ashamed of a people that could not profit them, nor be an help nor profit, but a shame, and also a reproach.
6 The burden of the beasts of the south: into the land of trouble and anguish, from whence come the young and old lion, the viper and fiery flying serpent, they will carry their riches upon the shoulders of young asses, and their treasures upon the bunches of camels, to a people that shall not profit them.
7 For the Egyptians shall help in vain, and to no purpose: therefore have I cried concerning this, Their strength is to sit still.
Egypt – The symbol of godlessness
God’s people have again become involved with other Gentile nations. Instead of modeling godly conduct to these peoples, God’s elect entered into covenants with them. This agreement was made “of all places” with Egypt, the “original source” of impiety and rebellion against God. With Pharaoh’s statement to Moses, “Who is the LORD, that I should obey his voice to let Israel go? I know not the LORD” (Exodus 5:2), Egypt and its pharaohs imposed the attribute of impiety on themselves. And this runs like a common thread through the prophecies throughout the Bible.
Egypt has already been defeated in Zoan
The site of Zoan (verse 4) was a city in northern Egypt and is first mentioned in the Bible in Numbers 13:22, noting that Zoan was built 7 years after the city of Hebron was built. The city of Zoan gained importance because Moses and his brother Aaron met the Pharaoh there. This is where the miracles happened (the rod became a serpent) and from where the 10 plagues coming to Egypt were announced. Zoan is also the place of the Egyptian scholars, or sages. These served as advisors to the Pharaoh. God has called these counselors foolish and foolish (Isaiah 19:11). They have deceived and made fools of those who sought their counsel (Isaiah 19:13).
Egypt believed that Zoan was the center of their wisdom. God drew a big line through their plans right from the beginning of “history.”
Egypt and Babylon today
The book of Daniel, chapter 11, contains a prophecy for the time of the end, i.e. the present day. In this prediction, Egypt reappears in the form of the Southern King (Info). This stands opposite the Northern King mentioned in the prophecy.
In the type, the Northern King represents Babylon at that time. The people of God were already geographically halfway between Babylon (in the north) and Egypt (in the south) and were repeatedly wiped out by both sides. In ancient times, Babylon overran the once proud Egypt and left a clear mark on the holy land. According to Daniel 11, such a constellation will also happen in the antitype in the end times. Except that here the southern king (Egypt) represents godlessness (atheism) and the northern king (Babylon) represents the pagan religion.
It is a spiritual (final) battle
The people of God today are not dealing with military conflicts, but with a spiritual war, as in Ephesians 6:12:
“For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.“
The two fronts in the symbolic south and north therefore do not consist of military units, but of atheism (godlessness) and paganism (heresies). There are two fronts of ideologies. Both are opposed to the gospel, i.e. the word of God and therefore also the truth. Even a mixture of both ideologies of North and South King cannot result in the will of God, that is impossible.
Church is not automatically “body of Christ”
Atheism (godlessness) can be found in socialism, communism and also in the “left-green woke” movements. A product from the time of the “Enlightenment” and the discovery of “one’s own reason”. In principle, it is even difficult to practice atheism in the true sense, because only very few people don’t believe in a power that is greater than oneself.
Paganism can be found today in many different ways. The other major religions don’t pose such a big danger, because Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism, for example, have each attached the label that they represent. A completely different matter, however, are the religious communities that represent a faith interspersed with paganism, but give themselves the label “Christianity”. For this reason, the Roman Catholic Church is already automatically disqualified as the “Body of Christ” and also as the “People of God”. Even the former Protestant churches, if they ever fully returned to the Gospel, have long since turned their backs on the Word of God. These are now back in the bosom of the mother church of Rome.
The false prophet
The former evangelical churches, like their parent organization, can no longer be described as Christian institutions. They have adopted the “woken” ideologies of atheism and at the same time sing the song of the replacement religion of “preservation of creation” that their mother church has now introduced. (Info). The Mother Church and her once evangelical daughters cannot therefore be the people of God, but rather embody what is described in the Bible as the “beast and the false prophet”. (Info).
The North King and South King sit at the same table
As officially as the two ideologies of the northern king (paganism) and the southern king (atheism) may be opposed to each other, they secretly sit at the same table and spread the same lies together (Daniel 11:27). The “spiritual father” of the Enlightenment, reason and human morality and thus of atheism is the same “spirit” as the woke, rainbow-colored ideologies and it is the same “spirit” that supports Catholic social teaching, catechism and also “Laudato Si'”. The external battle only serves to wear down the people of God in the middle from both sides.
For the broad masses, only the two alternatives, either “woke” or “conservative”, are presented with the help of a loud battle. According to the “Hegelian” principle, people end up either in the “right” camp or in the “left” camp (Info). There is no provision for an in-between, although it does exist. But these are people who do not want to or cannot switch to either of these two camps because of their commitment to the gospel. These will once be seen as “troublemakers” in the sights of both major groups. The people between the northern and southern kings will be wiped out by both.
Isaiah 30 – An example for the present
Just as, according to Isaiah 30, the people of God “in the middle” got involved with ungodliness (Egypt) and even entered into alliances with them, this can also be transferred to today in a spiritual sense.
Today’s people of God (spiritual Israel) consist of those people who still represent and teach the gospel as it is written. These are the people who obey the Word of God, bear the testimony of Jesus Christ and also keep His statutes. Possess precisely those characteristics that were or should have been given to the Israel of the Old Testament.
Just as apostasy entered the people of God back then, this apostasy from the true faith can also be observed today. This is evident in the cooperation with the “woken” ideologies (South King) and the cooperation within ecumenism (North King). It is obvious that even a compromise between the two ideologies cannot lead to the Word of God. Many leaders of that religious community sent their first messengers to Babylon as “observers” and “guest members” many years ago. Today they sit as “full members” at the same ecumenical table (e.g. ACK). The table at which the false prophet also acts as a link between “South and North ideologies” through his representation of the animal and the adoption of “woken” ideologies. Apparently the leaders also followed the advice of the “wise men in Zoan”.
The gospel is rejected
These are the teachers who today proclaim that the prophecies of the Bible are already outdated, that Revelation only contains the homage of the angels and no longer needs to be read.
These are the teachers who throw the Word of God overboard because they no longer seem up to date and now have to be interpreted according to the new spirit of the times. Isaiah 30:9-11 describes it:
“That this is a rebellious people, lying children, children that will not hear the law of the LORD: Which say to the seers, See not; and to the prophets, Prophesy not unto us right things, speak unto us smooth things, prophesy deceits: Get you out of the way, turn aside out of the path, cause the Holy One of Israel to cease from before us.“
Isaiah 30 also makes it clear that Babylon and Egypt have the same author. Just as the dragon is described as the driving force in Babylon (Revelation 13:4), so the “dragon” also set out for Egypt (Isaiah 30:6). But both ideologies soon disappear completely in Babylon. Egypt is void and Babylon will soon come to an end.
God has announced the consequences for these teachers who persist in their wrong paths:
And he shall break it as the breaking of the potters’ vessel that is broken in pieces; he shall not spare: so that there shall not be found in the bursting of it a sherd to take fire from the hearth, or to take water withal out of the pit.
Isaiah 30:14
Bible verses from King James Version
