Did Ethiopia and Sudan have a history with the one true God long before the time of Christ? Do other nations have ancient stories of God? Let’s look at Isaiah 18.
Is this message for Cush, an ancient peoples spanning Sudan and northern Ethiopia, a land where the Nile divides? Were they known for papyrus boats that were light and fast?
Woe to the land shadowed with buzzing wings, Which is beyond the rivers of Ethiopia [Cush], Which sends ambassadors by sea, Even in vessels of reed on the waters, saying, “Go, swift messengers, to a nation tall and smooth of skin, To a people terrible from their beginning onward, A nation powerful and treading down, Whose land the rivers divide.” (Isa 18:1-2 NKJV)
When God raises the alarm of war, anciently a ram’s horn, should the whole world pay attention to what God is about to do?
All you people of the world, everyone who lives on the earth—when I raise my battle flag on the mountain, look! When I blow the ram’s horn, listen! (Isa 18:3 NLT)
Is God planning to give the land of Cush a wake up call, hoping they will repent?
For Yahweh said to me, “I will be still, and I will see in my dwelling place, like clear heat in sunshine, like a cloud of dew in the heat of harvest.” For before the harvest, when the blossom is over, and the flower becomes a ripening grape, he will cut off the sprigs with pruning hooks, and he will cut down and take away the spreading branches. They will be left together for the ravenous birds of the mountains, and for the animals of the earth. The ravenous birds will eat them in the summer, and all the animals of the earth will eat them in the winter. (Isa 18:4-6 WEB)
Would Cush, a land of tall people, repent and turn to the Lord sending gifts to Jerusalem?
At that time, gifts will be brought to the Lord of heavenly forces from a tall and clean-shaven people and from a people feared near and far, a nation barbaric and oppressive, whose land the rivers divide, to the place of the name of the Lord of heavenly forces, to Mount Zion. (Isa 18:7 CEB)
After being baptized by Philip did the Ethiopian eunuch take the Gospel to his people as early church fathers taught? Was this the start of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church, a church independent of Rome except for a brief decade in the 1600’s?
After they had come out of the water, the Lord's Spirit took Philip away. The official never saw him again, but he was very happy as he went on his way. (Acts 8:39 CEV)
Did Ethiopia and Sudan have a history with the one true God long before the time of Christ? Do other nations have ancient stories of God? You decide!
