Dying In Egypt

Bill Fitzhenry's Thoughts For Today…

Understanding important truths from the Bible…. 

Jeremiah 44:12  ESV

¹² I will take the remnant of Judah who have set their faces to come to the land of Egypt to live, and they shall all be consumed. In the land of Egypt they shall fall; by the sword and by famine they shall be consumed. From the least to the greatest, they shall die by the sword and by famine, and they shall become an oath, a horror, a curse, and a taunt. 

Egypt has a prominent role in the life and history of Israel.  Their nation began there and they were always warned of the danger of returning.  They were warned about trade and especially they were never to depend on Egypt for protection in times of danger. 

In 44:12 Jeremiah warns the Jews to whom he spoke that they would die in Egypt.  But before they could die in Egypt they had to live in Egypt.  For them to live there, by way of application for one who calls himself or herself a Christian, means at least three particular choices have been made.  They are:

1.       God’s word is disregarded knowingly.  Look at 44:16 “As for the word that you have spoken to us in the name of the Lord, we will not listen to you. .  What makes this sin so blatantly sinful is the condition under which it occurs.  The context for the statement quoted is Jeremiah 42:5  Then they said to Jeremiah, “May the Lord be a true and faithful witness against us if we do not act according to all the word with which the Lord your God sends you to us. The radical hardness and hypocrisy of the unconverted and therefore false professor is overwhelming.  Their desire is to hear God’s word and obey it as long as it is agreeable to their self-interest. 

What every hearer of the true Gospel must understand is that God’s truth always cuts across our fondest concerns.  The Old Testament word for repentance is “turn”.  That is noteworthy in the light of the New Testament message beginning with the necessity of repentance.  The Gospel is always a call for us to turn from our own ways.  The Jews said to Jeremiah, “We will not listen to you.” 

2.      Idolatry is practiced openly, Jeremiah 44:17  But we will do everything that we have vowed, make offerings to the queen of heaven and pour out drink offerings to her, as we did, both we and our fathers, our kings and our officials, in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem.  Idolatry then as now was well understood.  It was more than merely putting something in the place of God.  Truth be known that is a daily plague upon us all.  This idolatry is the open worship, or the practice of making offering to a visible entity.  The Jews in our text practiced worshipping idols openly and zealously. 

This was the practice of the Egyptians.  The Jews could practice their idolatry without fear of contradiction there.  They were a part of the culture of worship and if note was taken of them they would have been encouraged. 

The culture of Egypt has been accepted by Christians and brought into the Christian Church.  This has happened in two particulars.  First entertainment has become the primary purpose of what should be worship.  This is particularly evident in the attitude toward music both in words and the music accompanying them  This, with an open disregard for any solemnity and content, marks acceptable forms of worship that surround us. 

Secondly is the failure to have any concept of the identity of the God which is worshipped.  This is recognized in the failure to distinguish heresies and the ease with their false gods are accepted.  Pelageans, Arians, and Unitarians are accepted as, “warm believers in Christ.”  To approve a false god is to be an idolater.

3.       They sought salvation from the wrong source, Jeremiah 44:30  Thus says the Lord, Behold, I will give Pharaoh Hophra king of Egypt into the hand of his enemies and into the hand of those who seek his life, as I gave Zedekiah king of Judah into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, who was his enemy and sought his life.”.  Egypt furnishes no protection for those who “do not obey the voice of the Lord” and who “have made their offerings to the queen of heaven.”  God’s purposes of judgment are not bounded by human activity or personal commitments.

It is with great interest that the protection of Egypt which is described as sincerity, personal character, zeal, and a full knowledge of God is invoked in those who live under the banner of Christianity.  I must ask if the words of Christ in Matthew 5:20 “For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven” have any real content?   If Christ is not speaking merely to furnish words for his scribes, there must be content in what he says.  Those named must have had an excellent righteousness.  It is described as an “exceeding righteousness”. 

Their zeal is proverbial, Matthew 23:15 Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you travel across sea and land to make a single proselyte, and when he becomes a proselyte, you make him twice as much a child of hell as yourselves. They were, in their church, zealous soul-winners.  They had one overwhelming problem; they did not know the true God and therefore they sought another way of salvation. 

Please look carefully at Jeremiah 44:14D  “For they shall not return, except some fugitives”.  Why did Jesus say to us, Matthew 7:13-14 (KJV) ” Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat:

¹⁴ Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.”?  The way indicated here cannot be common and ordinary and popular.  This “narrow gate” must give everyday Christianity a fright.