Ezekiel 30:14
I will lay waste Pathros, set fire to Zoan, and execute judgment on Thebes.
Sermons
The Lord's Day in EgyptJ.D. Davies Ezekiel 30:1-19














It is well known, from the records of ancient history, and from the explorations and studies of Egyptologists of our own century, that the land of the Pharaohs was the seat of idolatry of the most deeply rooted, widespread, and at the same time most debasing and contemptible kind. It was not possible that the prophet of the Lord, in rebuking Egypt, should confine himself to the region of polities; he could not but deal with the religion and the religious practices which prevailed in the land of immemorial superstition. His words upon this matter are few, but they are clear, direct, and powerful. "Thus saith the Lord God, I will also destroy the idols, and I will cause their images to cease from Noph."

I. THE VANITY AND INABILITY OF IDOLS TO HELP THOSE WHO TRUST IN THEM.

II. THE HELPLESSNESS OF THEIR DEVOTEES TO RETAIN FOR IDOLS THE ALLEGIANCE OF THEIR WORSHIPPERS.

III. THE CERTAINTY THAT PROVIDENTIAL OCCURRENCES WILL SHAKE THE CONFIDENCE OF IDOLATERS IN THEIR IDOLS, AND WILL BRING IDOLATRY TO NAUGHT.

IV. THE DIVINE PROVISION THAT, AS IDOLS ARE CONFOUNDED, THE TRUE AND ONLY GOD WILL BE EXALTED.

APPLICATION.

1. The principles underlying this prophecy are a great encouragement to all those who labor for the propagation of the gospel among the heathen; their labors shall, sooner or later, meet with a full success and recompense.

2. There is here an implicit counsel as to the replacing of idolatry by true religion. It is one thing to destroy, another thing to construct. In our Indian dominions at the present time, education is shaking the faith of the native population in their idols and idol-worship. But in very many instances, education has done nothing to supply the place made vacant by the exorcism of superstition. Hence the importance of philosophical and historical instruction in connection with Christian missions; so that provision may be made for the deep-seated needs of the spirit of man, so that a reasonable faith in the Supreme may be encouraged, and so that the evidences of supernatural Christianity may be presented in a convincing and satisfying form. It should be the aim of the Church, in her missionary capacity, to replace idolatry, not by an irrational atheism or a degrading secularism, but by intelligent and scriptural Christianity. - T.

As an adamant harder than flint have I made thy forehead.
(Zechariah 7:12): — A great and good man who served and suffered for Christ in North Africa seventeen centuries ago won for himself a noble name by which he is still known, Origen the Adamantine. There isn't a boy nor, in her own quiet way, a girl who does not feel some glow of heart or flush of face at the magic of this name, "the Unsubduable," "the Invincible." But he was not the first who bore the name. It was given long before by God Himself to His captive prophet in Babylon, whose forehead, as he faced the people, whose hearts were cold and hard as stones, might well be firm as adamant, since, in his very name, Ezekiel, he carried the great power of God. Now, what is adamant? Look at a lady's finger ring, and find among the precious stones set in its golden circle one that is quite clear and lustrous, and that throws off from every facet whatever rays of light are falling upon it. We call this sparkling gem, as you know, a diamond. But that is just another form of the word adamant, which we owe to the old Greeks, who naturally called the precious stone which could not be broken, adamas or "the unsubduable."

1. The diamond now flashing on your mother's finger was not always the hardest of stones. It was once a bit of soft, vegetable matter. For the diamond is not really different from the coal which makes our winter fires, and which, long, long ages ago, was a thick, steaming forest. Hence it is quite true that "the sunbeams are driving our railway trains." And the exiles in Babylon, who had grown so adamantine in evil that the sword of the Spirit which is the Word of God made no more impression on their hearts than your penknife on the angles of a diamond, were once boys and girls playing in the streets of Jerusalem, singing the songs of Zion, and dreaming their day dreams of ministering to the Lord like Samuel, or fighting with Goliaths like David, or leading the dance of triumph like Miriam. This terrible process of heart petrifying, or turning to stone, comes about by the action of the wise and good, though solemn and awful, law of habit. "The oftener, the easier." How woeful to reach at last the state when, as regards all that is highest and best, one is "past feeling," as though the conscience had been burned with a hot iron, or the heart made as hard as an adamant stone! From which may the good Lord deliver us!

2. We may find a promise of better things even in Zechariah's awful image of disobedience. The exquisite diamonds, or carbon crystals, are combustible, and, if subjected to a sufficient degree of heat, will pass off in carbonic acid gas. Fine ladies need not be so proud of their diamonds, since they may all be dissipated by fire; and poorer folks need not so greatly covet their possession, since they are breathing out diamond essence with every exhalation! And if we were so foolishly greedy as to want our diamond breaths back again, they would poison us. However this may be, it is certain that hearts as hard as an adamant stone are every day being softened, melted, transformed, by the fire of God's holy love, which saves the sinner by consuming his sins.

3. But "the broken heart," though it may seem strange to say so, is the stoutest and bravest of hearts. The true hero has always a tender conscience. He who fears God has no other fear. If Christ is your Master, and you are learning in His school, you may well appropriate the sturdy words over the gate of Marischal College, Aberdeen: "They say: what say they? let them say." God has His diamonds as well as the devil. Against the whole "House of Disobedience" stood up the son of Buzi, the prophet of the exile, in the strength of God. If the people were hard as flint in their own evil ways, he was firm as the adamant, which is harder than flint in the service of God. They did well to call Origen, the Adamantine, the Invincible, for when, at the age of sixteen, his father was thrown into prison for his confession of Christ, he wanted to go and suffer with him; and when it was shown him that this was not his duty, he wrote to his father not to falter in his faith for their sakes, for he would undertake the support of his mother and his six younger brothers. And nobly did he fulfil his promise, selling his books, working early and late as a teacher in Alexandria, and inspiring his pupils with such devotion that they called his college "a school for martyrs."

(A. N. Mackray, M. A.)

What is more unstable than water, yet, when frozen, what is more immovable? It becomes hard as a rock when God touches it. What He does in nature tie also does in grace. Peter was weak as water, but the Lord changed his nature as well as his name, and "Simon, son of Jonas," became "Peter, son of Jehovah." The Lord did the same for Ezekiel. "Behold, I have made thy face strong against their faces, and thy forehead strong against their foreheads. As an adamant harder than flint have I made thy forehead: fear them not, neither be dismayed at their looks, though they be a rebellious house" (Ezekiel 3:9). The world's hardening is death: God's hardening is strength; the yielding became unyielding, and those rippled with every breath became immovable. Yes, it is wonderful what God can enable us to bear!

(Footsteps of Truth.)

Loose-braced, easy souls, that lie open to all the pleasurable influences of ordinary life, are no more fit for God's weapons than a reed for a lance, or a bit of flexible lead for a spear point. The wood must be tough and compact, the metal hard and close-grained, out of which God makes His shafts. The brand that is to guide men through the darkness to their Father's home must glow with a pallor of consuming flame that purges its whole substance into light.

(A. Maclaren.)

People
Cherethites, Cushites, Egyptians, Ethiopians, Ezekiel, Lud, Lydia, Nebuchadnezzar, Nebuchadrezzar, Pharaoh, Phut
Places
Arabia, Babylon, Cush, Egypt, Libya, Lud, Memphis, Migdol, Nile River, On, Pathros, Pelusium, Pi-beseth, Put, Syene, Tehaphnehes, Thebes, Zoan
Topics
Acts, Desolate, Desolation, Egypt, Execute, Fire, Inflict, Judgment, Judgments, Pathros, Punishment, Punishments, Thebes, Upper, Waste, Zoan, Zo'an
Outline
1. The desolation of Egypt and her helpers
20. The arm of Babylon shall be strengthened to break the arm of Egypt.

Dictionary of Bible Themes
Ezekiel 30:12

     4819   dryness

Library
Sargon of Assyria (722-705 B. C. )
SARGON AS A WARRIOR AND AS A BUILDER. The origin of Sargon II.: the revolt of Babylon, Merodach-baladan and Elam--The kingdom of Elam from the time of the first Babylonian empire; the conquest's of Shutruh-nalkunta I.; the princes of Malamir--The first encounter of Assyria and Elam, the battle of Durilu (721 B.C.)--Revolt of Syria, Iaubidi of Hamath and Hannon of Gaza--Bocchoris and the XXIVth Egyptian dynasty; the first encounter of Assyria with Egypt, the battle of Raphia (720 B.C.). Urartu
G. Maspero—History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, V 7

Scriptures Showing the Sin and Danger of Joining with Wicked and Ungodly Men.
Scriptures Showing The Sin And Danger Of Joining With Wicked And Ungodly Men. When the Lord is punishing such a people against whom he hath a controversy, and a notable controversy, every one that is found shall be thrust through: and every one joined with them shall fall, Isa. xiii. 15. They partake in their judgment, not only because in a common calamity all shares, (as in Ezek. xxi. 3.) but chiefly because joined with and partakers with these whom God is pursuing; even as the strangers that join
Hugh Binning—The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning

Ezekiel
To a modern taste, Ezekiel does not appeal anything like so powerfully as Isaiah or Jeremiah. He has neither the majesty of the one nor the tenderness and passion of the other. There is much in him that is fantastic, and much that is ritualistic. His imaginations border sometimes on the grotesque and sometimes on the mechanical. Yet he is a historical figure of the first importance; it was very largely from him that Judaism received the ecclesiastical impulse by which for centuries it was powerfully
John Edgar McFadyen—Introduction to the Old Testament

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