Ezekiel 29:1-21
In God’s dealings with Egypt, we see both His wrath- ‘Egypt will become a desolate wasteland’- and His mercy- ‘At the end of forty years... I will restore the fortunes of Egypt’(9,13-14). God’s wrath is His response to Egypt’s pride - ‘Because you said, “The Nile is mine; I made it”, therefore I am against you’(9-10). In His merciful restoration, God places His restraint on Egypt’s pride - ‘It shall be the most lowly of the kingdoms, and will never again exalt itself above the other nations’ (15). We come to God as sinners. We confess our sins, praying, ‘In wrath, remember mercy’. He saves us by ‘His mercy’. His way of salvation - ‘through Jesus Christ our Saviour’- is a constant rebuke to our pride: ‘This is not your own doing. It is the gift of God’(Habakkuk 3:2; Titus 3:4-6; Ephesians 2:8).
In God’s dealings with Egypt, we see both His wrath- ‘Egypt will become a desolate wasteland’- and His mercy- ‘At the end of forty years... I will restore the fortunes of Egypt’(9,13-14). God’s wrath is His response to Egypt’s pride - ‘Because you said, “The Nile is mine; I made it”, therefore I am against you’(9-10). In His merciful restoration, God places His restraint on Egypt’s pride - ‘It shall be the most lowly of the kingdoms, and will never again exalt itself above the other nations’ (15). We come to God as sinners. We confess our sins, praying, ‘In wrath, remember mercy’. He saves us by ‘His mercy’. His way of salvation - ‘through Jesus Christ our Saviour’- is a constant rebuke to our pride: ‘This is not your own doing. It is the gift of God’(Habakkuk 3:2; Titus 3:4-6; Ephesians 2:8).
