Throughout the Bible we see how God places leaders up and takes leaders down for His purposes. "Lift not up your horn on high: speak not with a stiff neck. For promotion cometh neither from the east, nor from the west, nor from the south. But God is the judge: he putteth down one, and setteth up another." (Psalms 75: 5-7) In the month of Adar we have the account of God’s removing Pharoah’s reign in Egypt via the plagues before the deliverance of His people Israel from bondage and slavery via the Passover which we looked at last week. The month of Adar is indeed the month of Divine reversals and deliverance. Today we will look at another very dark time in the history of God’s people as God removed them from the Promised Land in the month of Adar because they had forsaken Him and His ways and turned to idols and pagan worship. There are 43 kings recorded in the Old Testament who reigned over Israel and Judah. Of those, only 10 of them were considered righteous! We can clearly see from this listing the battle of the ages against God and His seed (10—the number of perfection or completeness in divine order) and Satan and his seed (33% of the angels followed Satan).
The month of Adar or the 12th month, is mentioned eight times in scripture. We will look at four of them this week and the other four next week and glean insights that we can apply today. Adar 27, in 2 Kings 25:27 and Jeremiah 25:31 is the day the king decides to let Jehoiachin, king of Judah, out of prison. On Adar 1 and again on Adar 15 in Ezekiel 32: 1-2 and 17-18 are two prophecies where God proclaims that Egypt will be overthrown, despite its fearsome reputation. What stands out in these verses is the Divine reversals in each account.
Let’s first look at the passages from 2 Kings and repeated in Jeremiah. “Now it came about in the thirty-seventh year of the exile of Jehoiachin king of Judah, in the twelfth month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month, that Evil-merodach king of Babylon, in the year that he became king, released Jehoiachin king of Judah from prison.” We learn from the passages prior to this scripture about the status of the nation before the deportation. Under Manasseh they had built up the high places of pagan worship and altars of Baal, established groves devoted to the worship of Ishtar, practiced astrology, sacrificed children, practiced witchcraft and built houses of sodomy. The prophetess Huldah gave a warning from God of judgment upon Judah for forsaking Him and for a period of time God delayed it under the righteous reign of Josiah. In Chapter 23: 24-25: “Moreover the workers with familiar spirits, and the wizards, and the images, and the idols, and all the abominations that were spied in the land of Judah and in Jerusalem, did Josiah put away, that he might perform the words of the law which were written in the book that Hilkiah the priest found in the house of the LORD. And like unto him was there no king before him, that turned to the LORD with all his heart, and with all his soul, and with all his might, according to all the law of Moses; neither after him arose there any like him.”
Josiah died and the window of grace was over. According to 23: 26-27 the fierceness of God’s great wrath and anger was kindled against Judah because of all their disobedience and sin and as He did with Israel would cast Judah out of the city of Jerusalem which He chose as a House for My Name. The king of Babylon came to Jerusalem, seized the city and took Jehoiachin the king of Babylon (grandson of Josiah) captive. Chapter 25 covers the devastation that fell upon Jerusalem—the Temple was plundered and burned along with the city and the people were carried away into Babylon leaving only a poor destitute remnant behind. It is in the passages in 2 Kings 25: 27-30 and Jeremiah 25:31 that we see the divine reversal and mercy shown to Jehoiachin as we see that he was set free from prison, his prison garments removed and restored as a king and given abundant food and provision all the days of his life. What do we glean from these passages? (1) God does not bless a nation that does not honor Him as evidenced in the abominations sighted. Do we recognize these in America today? (2) God sends prophets and prophetess to warn the people according to Amos 3: 7. Are we heeding the prophets God has risen today or despising prophetic messages according to 1 Thess. 5: 20? (3) God hears the cries of repentance and grants healing and deliverance as in Josiah’s day and delayed judgment. Is He calling us to be a Josiah now so that He will give us a window of grace? (4) Jehoiachin did not deserve mercy and God’s grace and neither do we but Jesus is our salvation and clothes us with His robe of righteousness, makes us joint heirs with Him and meets all our needs according to riches in glory both now and forevermore!
Now, let’s look at Ezekiel 32: 1-2: “In the twelfth year, in the twelfth month, on the first of the month, the word of the LORD came to me saying ‘Son of man, take up a lamentation over Pharoah king of Egypt and say to him, ‘You compared yourself to a young lion of the nations, yet you are like the monster in the seas; and you burst forth in your rivers and muddied the waters with your feet and fouled their rivers. Thus says the Lord God. ‘Now I will spread My net over you with a company of many peoples, and they shall lift you up in My net.” Then in Ezekiel 32: 17 it says: “On the fifteenth day of the month in the twelfth year, the word of Adonai came to me…Though I instilled a terror of him in the land of the living, yet he will be made to lie down among the uncircumcised along with those slain by the sword, even Pharoah and all his hordes. Declares the LORD God.”
As in the previous scriptures, it is necessary for us to look at the chapters prior to the text to fully understand the context. Ezekiel 28: 11-19 sets the stage for the culmination of end-time events as the king of Tyre is the picture of Satan, inspirer and unseen ruler of all pomp and pride. The unfallen state of Satan is here described. Satan fulfills his earthly role through earthly kings and rulers and foreshadows the Beast of Revelation where he will be no more. In Ezekiel 29-31 God prophesied through Ezekiel the destruction of Egypt pointing to the ultimate victory over all that opposes Him in the final battle over evil. In scripture Egypt has a tremendous symbolic significance. It is a type of oppression, the world, slavery, sin and death. It is interesting to note that in 1 Peter 5:8 the devil is described as a roaring lion seeking someone to seize upon and devour and the sea monster or serpent Leviathan and Behemoth are figures of darkness in Job 40 and 41. GOD DELIVERS HIS PEOPLE FROM DEATH AND DARKNESS! Satan, the Leviathan is a horrible monster, but he can’t go one inch beyond the leash on which the LORD keeps him. At the climax of the book of Job is the assurance that both death (the Behemoth) and the one who holds the power of death (the Leviathan) are creatures entirely under the control of the sovereign God who is our Savior. It’s not until the New Testament that we learn what it cost God to win this victory over the Leviathan. This victory was won, paradoxically, on the cross of Christ. As the writer of the letter to the Hebrews explains, the reason God’s Son became a fully human being was so that “through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil” (Hebrew 2:14). Today we see evil abounding and evil frightens us. When the darkness of the Leviathan’s presence overwhelms us, we may turn with confidence to God who is able to Deliver His people from the powers of darkness.
The Hebrew name “adar” is related to the word “adir” which denotes strength and power. “The Lord is my Rock and my Fortress and my Deliverer. My God, my strength, in whom I will trust; my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.” (Psalms 18:2) “The Lord is my Light and my Salvation, whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life, of whom shall I be afraid?” (Psalms 27:1) “The Lord is my strength and my shield; my heart trusted in Him, and I am helped; therefore my heart greatly rejoices, and with my song I will praise Him.” (Psalms 28:7) Just as God called His people, the Israelites out of bondage in Egypt, He call us, His children, to “come out and be separate” and live holy lives in His kingdom (2 Cor. 6:17) May God perform a DIVINE REVERSAL ANE DELIVERANCE in this nation, in the Church, and in our families during the month of Adar!