Woe to those who go down to Egypt for help and rely on horses, and trust in chariots because they are many and in horsemen because they are very strong, but they do not look to the Holy One of Israel, nor seek the LORD! (Isa 31:1)Oh, sure, we can translate from "horses" and "chariots" to "humvees" and "jeeps", but, seriously, we (Christians) aren't waging war anymore, so what's the point?
If that's what you come away with, perhaps you ought to look a little closer. The text is not about "How to wage war", but about the place you put your confidence and the One you seek.
Ironic, isn't it? Israel, facing enemies they feared, went to Egypt for help. You remember, Egypt, the nation that enslaved them for 400 years. The nation to which, having escaped, they constantly begged to return as slaves (Acts 7:39). The nation that God commanded them to never go to for help (Deut 17:16). Against reason and command, Israel went to Egypt for help against their enemies. That's the same Egypt that the New Testament references as the symbol of worldliness (Jude 1:5). Israel, then, idolized the world that enslaved them and sought to use their tools to defeat their enemies.
That's half the problem. The other half is that they did not look to God or consult the LORD. You see, it is not in the use of tools available in the world that is the problem. It is in the trust in those tools. It is in the assumption that they can and should do whatever it takes to accomplish their ends, even if it means returning to those who enslaved them. But the right answer is not there. The right answer is in looking to God and seeking Him. The right answer is in placing their trust in the One who has delivered before and can always deliver.
Well, now, it seems as if we have left the outdated and useless text of Isaiah 31 and ended up in the pews and pulpits of the churches of our day. Look around. Isn't this exactly where we are today? We have decided that the methods and forms of our world are the best tools to accomplish God's work. It's in the music and in the language. It's in the approaches to people and even to faith. We've incorporated what the world says works and trust our musical performances, our videos and dramas, our cool clothes and hip fashions, our wise apologetics, our sage scientific strategies, and our "social justice". God, you see, is "out there" and we, in our wisdom, have figured out that we can accomplish His work by our methods which, by the way, are informed by Egypt, not Jerusalem. So we place our trust in our procedures and performances and assume God will thank us for undertaking methods that work when, apparently, we can't trust Him to accomplish it. And suddenly that archaic passage from Isaiah is sitting in our living rooms begging for an audience.
Woe to those who go down to Egypt for help and rely on horses, and trust in chariots because they are many and in horsemen because they are very strong, but they do not look to the Holy One of Israel, nor seek the LORD!
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