Egypt, my people

“Egypt, my people”

“I know the end of the story, I come up from the wilderness, leaning on my Beloved” writes composer and worshiper, Jon Thurlow, in his amazing song called “His Strong Love”.  We have been singing and rejoicing in God’s love through this song the past couple of Thursday evenings in the Shore House of Prayer.  So, what does it mean to us as God’s people that we “know the end of the story”?

1 John 5: 14 & 15 reads: “This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us.  And if we know that he hears us—whatever we ask—we know that we have what we asked of him.”  For some reason God wants his people to participate in bringing his will to earth as it is in heaven.  He reveals his heart to us, so we can pray it back to him, and promises us that if we pray for the desires of his heart, we can be sure that we will have what we are asking for.

So we took that concept of praying what we already know is big on God’s heart to his throne room during our “fire in the night” session (9 p.m. to 11 p.m.) at Shore House of Prayer last Thursday night.  We prayed for Israel-we know God is crazy about them!- and then spent a good half hour praying God’s will for Israel’s neighbor nation, Egypt.  The situation unfolding now in Egypt is precarious.  A new Islamic leader has come to office who has promised Sharia law.  Coptic Christians are being persecuted and churches burned.  Israel is displaying her awareness of anticipated erosion of their peace treaty with Egypt by increased military presence and erecting fences along their shared border.  Frightening, disturbing, and dangerous are words that come to mind.  But God has told us the end of the story where Egypt is concerned, in Isaiah 19:19-24:

In that day there will be an altar to the Lord in the heart of Egypt, and a monument to the Lord at its border.  It will be a sign and witness to the Lord Almighty in the land of Egypt. When they cry out to the Lord because of their oppressors, he will send them a savior and defender, and he will rescue them.  So the Lord will make himself known to the Egyptians, and in that day they will acknowledge the Lord. They will worship with sacrifices and grain offerings; they will make vows to the Lord and keep them.  The Lord will strike Egypt with a plague; he will strike them and heal them. They will turn to the Lord, and he will respond to their pleas and heal them.

In that day there will be a highway from Egypt to Assyria. The Assyrians  go to Egypt and the Egyptians to Assyria. The Egyptians and Assyrians will worship together.  In that day Israel will be the third, along with Egypt and Assyria, a blessing on the earth. The Lord Almighty will bless them, saying, “Blessed be Egypt my people, Assyria my handiwork, and Israel my inheritance.”

We were armed with the revelation of God’s heart as revealed in his word, and emboldened by the promise of answered prayer when we pray God’s will.  So we at “fire in the night” prayed and sang over Egypt, God’s people, called things that are not right now as though they were, and as they shall be at the end of the story.  And we know that the Father said “YES!”