LIBERATION THEOLOGY

GOD’S DEALINGS WITH ETHIOPIA
Second Message on Liberation Theology
As we approach the eighteenth chapter of Isaiah keep in mind that Isaiah is called of God to prophesize to Judah. He pleaded with them to walk with God. He then foretold the future destruction of Israel and Judah because he foresaw that they would not turn to God.
When Isaiah foretold the woe or burden to come upon a nation, he also foretold the blessings to come if there were any.
When he saw Israel and Judah’s judgment he also saw a blessed ending because of the covenant God made with Israel and all nations who would make Israel’s God, Jehovah, their God.
Then in chapter thirteen Isaiah began to foretell the judgment of the surrounding nations that had opposed and fought against Israel and Judah.
Isaiah foresaw the beginning of every nation and he saw God’s past judgment and future judgment upon those nations.
Some of them had some terrible origins. For example the Moabites and the Ammonites began through an incestuous relationship that a man had with his daughters.
Till this day the descendants of Ammon and Moab still fight with vicious hatred against God’s people, the Jewish people.
In chapter seventeen we saw the final destruction of the Syrians, the PLO and the Jordanians’ who have and will fight against Israel.
It is the descendants of these that comprise many of the Muslim people in the Middle East.
Now God turns Isaiah’s prophecy towards Ethiopia.

I – GOD’S MERCY TOWARDS ETHIOPIA
Isaiah paints a picture of God’s mercy towards the Ethiopian people. Isaiah 18:1 Woe to the land, shadowing with wings, which is beyond the rivers of Ethiopia:
In verse one, “Woe,” is the Hebrew word, “hoy.” The Hebrew man, who heard this, understood the word to mean, “Hear Me; listen to this.”
“Shadowing with wings” is also an interesting word. It is a description of the environment of a nation. It means, “Rustling with wings.” 1
Twentieth century missionaries say that the jungles of Africa are known for all its birds. It is called by many, “the land of wings.”
Ethiopia represents Africa. It is the land of the origin of some black or African races. This does not include all black races.
I use those two terms because the United States governmental census used those terms for this race. When the U.S. census asks about one’s race they ask if one is white or Asian or black.
Let me say in the past few weeks I have heard many black pastors refer to themselves and their congregations as black. So I will use this term so we might understand some teachings in the Scripture today.

II - GOD’S MISSION TO THE ETHIOPIAN PEOPLE
2 That sendeth ambassadors by the sea, even in vessels of bulrushes upon the waters, saying, Go, ye swift messengers, to a nation scattered (tall) and peeled, to a people terrible from their beginning hitherto; a nation meted out and trodden down, whose land the rivers have spoiled (cut through or divided by)!
Again we see the description is of the African continent for it is known for the many waterfalls and beautiful rivers that flow in the land.
God’s word is both historical and imminent and yet it is pending and prophetic.
In this verse Isaiah brings to our attention the past, present and future of the Ethiopian people.

First we see the past: Isaiah 18:2 reveals some interesting thoughts about these people. One part is very disturbing: …to a people terrible from their beginning hitherto ;
What was so fearful about their beginning? “Terrible” means to fear morally. “Hitherto” means from beginning to end.
Was there beginning as bad as Lot committing incest with his daughters?
In Genesis 10:1 Noah had three sons, Ham, Shem and Japheth.
Ham had a son named Cush (Gen 10:8).
In Genesis nine after the Great Flood Ham committed a grievous sin against his father upon which God cursed one of his sons, Canaan.
When Ham’s children settled, they settle mainly in the area of what we call today Africa.
Cush means Ethiopia. He had a son named Nimrod who was a mighty man and the founder of the Babylonian civilizations.
This society was founded in rebellion against God.
From Nimrod and Babylon came an anti-God constitution, culture and creed of which has influenced the whole world till this day.

But, rather than a woe or burden pronounced by Isaiah on the Ethiopian nation, God seems to be very gracious and kind. He says in verse one, “woe” or hoy. He says, “Hear me, listen to what I am about to say.”

Why? It could be because the Ethiopian people were distant kin through Noah, rather than near kin through Abraham, Ishmael, Esau.
Look at the present in Isaiah’s time. Ethiopia was once a major world power.
--Ethiopia ruled Egypt for a time and was a chief rival to the mighty Assyrians.
--In 715 B.C. an Ethiopian leader named Shabako through great military tactics and great strength gained control of Egypt and was founder of the twenty-fifth dynasty.
--Ethiopian domination continued until 633 B.C. when a native Egyptian regained the throne.”
God’s people, Judah, was caught in the middle between two mighty powers, Ethiopia and Assyria.
It seemed like Ethiopia was the strongest and Judah was contemplating aligning herself with Ethiopia against Assyria. 3
Always remember, God told His people to align with no country. They were to trust Him and Him alone.
Ethiopia sought for Judah to side with them over the Assyrians.
Isaiah 18:2 - That sendeth ambassadors by the sea, even in vessels of bulrushes upon the waters, saying, Go, ye swift messengers, to a nation scattered and peeled…
Presently and prophetically an amazing story unfolds before our eyes.
1st - The Ethiopia people sent ambassadors to Israel as quickly as possible to form an alliance and they waited for the good news to return.
The news of Israelite sending back a messenger to Ethiopia to agree with that alliance against the Assyria never came.

2nd - But prophetically the good news that one day the Ethiopians would come and worship at Mount Zion would actually happen.
It was fulfilled in Acts 8:26-40. First century history and the Bible coincide to reveal this amazing account of Isaiah’s prophecy being fulfilled.
Just east of the Sudan in Africa lived a people of the Aksum Empire.
The Aksum Empire was an important trading nation in northeastern Africa from the 4th century BC to the 1st century AD when it became a giant trading nation.
It is also the alleged resting place of the Ark of the Covenant and the home of the Queen of Sheba.4

It prospered as an important trade center between the Roman Empire and India during this time.
One day an official in the Aksum government set out on a journey to seek the God of heaven and earth.5
This spiritually hungry man was seeking out the message of salvation was written about in the book of Acts.
He was called the Ethiopian Eunuch. He had come to Israel, to Jerusalem, just as prophesied in this text to find the true God of heaven, but his search ended with no hope, no alliance with truth.
He got back in his Chariot and was going back home as he had come, a religious seeker, still lost in his sins.
But, God would not let him return without an alliance this time.
Philip, the evangelist was directed by the Holy Spirit to go and witness to this man.
Philip approached him as he was heading home in his chariot. The man was reading a scroll.
Philip asked him what he was reading and discovered the man was reading Isaiah 53. Philip ask if the man understood what he was reading and the man said, “How can I accept someone explain it to me.”
Philip got in the man’s chariot and told him that Isaiah 53 spoke of Jesus Christ who had come from heaven and died for the sins of the people.
The Eunuch got saved. He made an alliance with God and took this story of Salvation back to his nation.
His search proved to be successful.
He returned to his people with the good news of Salvation.
Many in his country accepted Christ and in time the entire kingdom became a Christian state. Their witness spread across the continent of Ethiopia.

Eighteen hundred years have come and gone and the nation, like many nations sadly, slowly and ignorantly turned their back on the promises of God just as America is doing today.
Thought a nation of nearly 1 billion today, Africa is filled with much violence, aids, poverty and governmental problems.
Why? Whose fault is it? Friend this happens to any and every nation that has been given truth and then forgets God’s word.
Skip verse three for a moment and look at verse 4-6.

3 – GOD’S METEING TO THE ETHOPIAN PEOPLE
The word “mete” means judgment in the Scriptures. 4 For so the LORD said unto me, I will take my rest, and I will consider in my dwelling place like a clear heat upon herbs, and like a cloud of dew in the heat of harvest.
God says, I will wait and watch intently to see the actions of this people.
5 For afore the harvest, when the bud is perfect, and the sour grape is
ripening in the flower, he shall both cut off the sprigs with pruning hooks, and take away and cut down the branches.
6 They shall be left together unto the fowls of the mountains, and to the beasts of the earth: and the fowls shall summer upon them, and all the beasts of the earth shall winter upon them.
Isaiah paints a picture of a land with fields filled with plenty (v 5). And that was a picture of the African continent.
But they turned from God even though tens of millions profess Christianity.
Isaiah pictures the crops being cut down and destroyed just prior to a great harvest but that is sadly, a picture of many within the nation of Africa today.
This Scripture reveals the destruction of a great nation who knew God but then began to trust in false alliances.
Many within the Ethiopian nations as well as their governments have yoked up with the Muslims religion and communistic governments to form a social political movement known as “Liberation Theology.”
And because of this, in the 20th and 21st century you see its fruit or offspring being cut off early in life and the many precious African people being cut down like branches due to aids, poverty and war.

4 – GOD’S MESSAGE TO THE WHOLE WORLD (3,7)
3 All ye inhabitants of the world, and dwellers on the earth, see ye, when he lifteth up an ensign on the mountains; and when he bloweth a trumpet, hear ye.
7 In that time shall the present be brought unto the LORD of hosts of a people scattered and peeled, and from a people terrible from their beginning hitherto; a nation meted out and trodden under foot, whose land the rivers have spoiled, to the place of the name of the LORD of hosts, the mount Zion.
Verse 3 is clear. God says to the Ethiopian people, ‘open your eyes and realize you have made wrong alliance in government and religion.
That is why your people have faced judgment, just as every nation that turns from God has faced judgment.
It seems that verse seven is almost the same as verse two but nearly 2,000 years separates the two verses. Here you see God’s mercy again.
Isaiah’s prophecy was fulfilled again in the twentieth century according to Missionary journals.
How? In the same way that God directed Philip to witness to the Ethiopian man in the first century, he directed two missionaries to answer the prayers of an Ethiopian man in the twentieth century.
In the south-central hill country of Ethiopia, as recorded in missionary journals, a member of the “royal family” of the Gedeo tribe prayed and asked if the true God would reveal Himself to His Gedeo people.
The native’s name was Warrasa. He says he saw a vision. In that vision he saw two white-skinned strangers erect a flimsy shelter under the shade of a large sycamore tree at the edge of his village.
Warrasa then heard a voice, “These men will bring you a message from the God you see: wait for them.”
Warrasa was himself taking the center pole from his own house and placing it on the ground next to the strange dwelling of the two men.
The center pole of a man’s house symbolized his life and all he has. The vision ended.
Warrasa knew that this meant he must identify with the message of these men and the God whom they served.
Warrasa waited and waited and prayed and prayed.
Eight years later on a hot December day, two white skin missionaries arrived at the edge of the Gedeo tribe to begin working among the people.
He watched with excitement and amazement as the two men set up their shelter under a large sycamore tree.
He eagerly listened to their message and became one of the first believers of the Gedeo tribe.
Within thirty years over 200 churches with thousands of believers throughout the Gedeo tribe were established. 6

These 200 churches were filled with African people that loved Jesus just like you and me from 1875 to 1935.
Now Listen:
1 - Churches whether they are of African descent or American descent or Russian decent or Chinese decent or any race, if they are blood-washed, Spirit-filled churches will have everything in common with Christ. The Bible calls our Salvation a common salvation (Titus 1:4).
2 – All Christians are saved by and baptized by one spirit into one body. All preachers who study and preach this book preach a common Salvation, and a common Christian life style.

3- God has given a sign to all the world. It was a sign that changed history. It was a sign that change nations. It was a sign that changed man’s eternal destiny. It set men completely free from sin and hate and prejudices. It was the sign of the cross. It is the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Great men and poor men, kings and paupers, Jew and Gentile, black and white, all who understand the sign of Calvary, rejoice.
That is the great truth God gave to the Ethiopian people and Isaiah says to the whole inhabitants of the world, “This is the ensign God gives to you” (v 3).

--When Christ gave his life on Calvary He provided love and freedom and forgiveness to “all who believe.”
His first words from the cross were, “Father forgive them, they know not what they do.”
--When you receive Christ, you experience His love and you experience His forgiveness. And you experience freedom.
Hate and prejudices die within you and you are free.

Every man is a servant or slave to his sins until Jesus sets him free. To hold hate or prejudices towards anyone, any people, any nation or any individual is to enslave your own soul.

Now, I want to make all of this applicable to where we live today in the light of recent events about churches and their beliefs and what they preach and how they preach whether they are black or white or Asian congregations.
Liberation Theology is a doctrine some churches preach, but it was not invented till 1962 and that by the Catholic Church. Pope Benedict XVI condemns this doctrine today and warns that it caters on Marxism.
It is a teaching that makes alliances with the Muslim religion and socialist politics. Get the Sunday School teaching on this to understand more.
Listen: First, it is wrong to preach white supremacy. How many of you agree with that say, “Amen.”
It is wrong to be part of the Ku Klux Klan or any organization that spews hatred towards another race.
There are nationally 38 White supremacy groups in America.
Some are small and some huge and they are all Biblically condemned by the God’s Word.
Most of these groups preach hate towards America and towards God’s precious black people and towards God’s precious chosen people, the Jews. These white supremacy groups are 100% wrong.
A number of them call themselves Christians and even have organized churches and claim to be doing God’s will.
They are sadly totally ignorant of God’s word and God’s teachings. If you agree say, “Amen.”
Second: It is wrong to preach black supremacy as well. It is wrong for a black group whether it is the NAACP (The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) (The Black Panthers, the nation of Yahewh) or a church to be anti-American, anti white and anti Jewish. Amen!
They mainly began with Malcolm X, then Elijah Muhammad and now with Louis Farrakhan.
In America and other countries there are white churches and mixed churches and black churches that love Jesus Christ and go by the teachings of the Scripture and have nothing to do with the modern Day Liberation Theology from any standpoint. I salute them.

When 911 took place, the Lord laid on my heart to explain to you the evils of the Muslim religion. It is clear that Muslims are anti Christian and anti Jewish and anti America and anti- Jehovah God.
I tell you this because you must be men of understanding.
In II Chronicles 12: 32 God commends …the children of Issachar, which were men that had understanding of the times, to know what Israel ought to do;

In the news lately has been Barack Obama’s pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright as well as other black preachers just like him.
But I want you to know there are good Godly black preachers that preach the same truth I preach and not “Liberation Theology.”
The Rev. Wright has been on TV with many sermons revealing attitudes and messages that are contradictory to that Christianity.
Rev. Wright quoted from the song, “God bless America” but then changed it from the pulpit with far less that a loving spirit by saying a number of times and I quote, “No, not God bless America but G—D—America.
He compared American government to the KKK and compared the America government to state-sponsoring terrorism.
His anti-America and anti-Christian and anti Jewish sentiment has not settled well with Christian people of all races in America.

There are many black preachers and churches that are ashamed of such rhetoric, just like I am ashamed that a man would call himself a reverend as I, and preach in such an un-Christian way.

God’s word warns against the style of preaching of Rev Wright and any preacher of any race that will spew such hatred. Look at…
I Peter 3: 9 Not rendering evil for evil, or railing for railing: but contrariwise blessing; knowing that ye are thereunto called, that ye should inherit a blessing.
If you feel someone has treated you wrong, according to God’s word, you don’t retaliate with evil, railings, and hatred, but blessings.
Look at 2 Peter 2: 10 But chiefly them that walk after the flesh in the lust of uncleanness, and despise government. Presumptuous are they, selfwilled, they are not afraid to speak evil of dignities.
11 Whereas angels, which are greater in power and might, bring not railing accusation against them before the Lord.
Not even God’s angels will bring an accusation against a government. Who gives a preacher the right to do so? God doesn’t.
It isn’t wrong to say, “America made a mistake by removing the Ten Commandments, please pray for Amreica.
It isn’t wrong when to preach against “abortion and homosexuality” and call it sin. But it is sin to rail and curse from the God’s pulpit.

Any church whether its congregation is black, white or mixed that spews hatred and anti-Christian and anti-America and anti-Jewish sentiment such as the words that came from Rev. Wright at the Trinity Church of Christ is not a revealing Christianity.

A Christian is to love every people of every race. If our hearts are right with the Lord, we are to love our brothers in Christ whether they are African, Asian or America.
We are to love them. It doesn’t matter what their ethnic background or culture is.
God loved the whole world. Jesus died for every nationally.
When the Holy Spirit fills your life, He lifts up and exalts Jesus Christ.
He doesn’t curse God and a country.
As evil as Nero and Rome was, you never find an apostle cursing the Roman government.

When Jesus Christ saves a man, that man is no longer a white man fighting for his own hates and passion.
When Jesus Christ saves a black man, that man is no longer a black man fighting for liberation theology.
When someone gets saved and I mean truly saved that person should become like Jesus Christ, without prejudices, without hate, without anarchy running through his veins.

The greatest example in the Bible of a free man is the apostle Paul.
He was a Jewish man filled with a passion for his people.
The Jewish people had lost their freedom and had been suppressed by the Egyptian government for 430 years.
They were conquered by and imprisoned by the Assyrian government for 120 years and the Babylonian government for 70 years.
Then Roman government burned their city to the ground, killed millions and spread them across the face of the earth.
Paul hated Christians. His heart was to hunt down, arrest, imprison and kill Christians. But, when he became a Christian, Jesus changed his life.
He no longer spewed out hatred and prejudices.
He preached the love of Christ and the forgiveness of sins for all who would repent. Paul loved the Gentile and the Jew, the black and the white.

Any preacher, white or black that will curse their government and spew bias and malicious hate from their lips from their pulpit is not Christian in actions whatsoever.

That is not the fruit of a Christian. That is not the life of a Christian. And I would distance myself as far as I could from a preacher like that.

Paul told Timothy how to preach. 2 Tim 4: 2 Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine.
James 3:17 reveals the actions of a Believer:
17 But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy.
Christians are not here to start a war but to stop the wars.
We aren’t here to hate but to love.
We aren’t here to stir up violence but to be peacemakers.
We have been forgiven, we must forgive.
We have been set free by Christ, live like a free man.






































1 – David Guzik, www.enduringword.com/commentaries/
2 – Ibid.,
3 - Thru The Bible, J. Vernon McGee, Proverbs – Isaiah commentary
4 - From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, Kingdom of Aksum)
5 - Advance Training Institute of America, Vol 11, p 471
6 – Ibid.,