"Not Hidden" Sermon: Isaiah 45:14-25 (video)

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pz3ITmwqafY&feature=youtu.be

"Not Hidden" Sermon: Isaiah 45:14-25 (manuscript)

 

“Not Hidden”

[Isaiah 45:14-25]

October 25, 2020 YouTube

            Today is Reformation Sunday.  It was on October 31, 1517 that Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses on the door of the Wittenberg Castle desiring to debate the issue of indulgences, but inadvertently began the Protestant Reformation.

            In Luther’s writings about salvation, he argues that God is both hidden and not hidden.  And we may think, “That makes no sense – that’s a contradiction – something cannot both be and not be in the same place at the same time and in the same relation – as the Law of Non-Contradiction states.”

            The fact of the matter is that God is both hidden and not hidden in this way:  God is hidden to those who do not believe savingly in Jesus, and God is not hidden to those who do believe savingly in Jesus.  And the way that one gets from one state to the other is by God alone giving both grace and faith to a person so he will be able to believe.

            As Paul writes, “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them” (Ephesians 2:8-10, ESV).

            Now, last week we saw the reaction of Jerusalem to God saying He will use the pagan king, Cyrus, to free Jerusalem and rebuild the city and the Temple, and the people are aghast with this idea – they want God to rethink what He is doing.

            God tells Jerusalem that God is beyond questioning and He is Sovereign over all.

            So, we turn to this morning’s text.

            As we continue to look at the prophecy of Isaiah, we see, first, God is hidden.

“Thus says the LORD: ‘The wealth of Egypt and the merchandise of Cush, and the Sabeans, men of stature, shall come over to you and be yours; they shall follow you; they shall come over in chains and bow down to you. They will plead with you, saying: “Surely God is in you, and there is no other, no god besides him.”’”

Were Egypt, Cush, and the Sabeans ever conquered by Israel?  Were they ever put in chains and caused to bow down?

The answer is, “no,” this never happened.  So, what do we do with this text?

We look at the end of this text where we are told that they come because they recognize that the only True God is the God of Israel.  Therefore, we read this text spiritually.  We are not being told that Israel will conquer Egypt, Cush, and the Sabeans, take their wealth, and put them in chains as a historical reality.  Rather, the conquest of the nations is spiritual, saying that they will come to acknowledge that the True God is only found in Israel.

Has this occurred?

Yes.  It is said that Mark spread Christianity in Northern Africa.  St. Augustine was from Northern Africa.  Today, there are more Christians in Africa than in any other continent on Earth.  (https://thelastwell.org/the-current-state-of-christianity-in-africa/) There are more Christians in Africa than in the United States, more than in Europe, more than in Asia, more than in South America.  That’s really quite remarkable.

Expanding this out, we understand Egypt, Cush, and the Sabeans are representative of the Gentile world.  The Gentile world will come to understand that the only True God is the God of Israel – the God of the Law and the Prophets in the Old Testament – Who is Incarnate in the New Testament for our salvation.

 How do they get to this point?

“Truly, you are a God who hides himself, O God of Israel, the Savior. All of them are put to shame and confounded; the makers of idols go in confusion together. But Israel is saved by the LORD with everlasting salvation; you shall not be put to shame or confounded to all eternity.”

God is hidden.  What that means is that no one naturally seeks after God.  The idea of a seeker sensitive church is ridiculous.

Paul writes:

“as it is written: ‘None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one’” (Romans 3:10-12, ESV).

So, the point is that God is hidden in the sense that there is a necessity of revelation for salvation.  If God does not open a person’s eyes and change out his heart and fill him with God the Holy Spirt, he will never see God, he will never seek after God, he will never believe savingly in Jesus, the Only Savior.  God is hidden from every mere human until God reveals Himself in the salvation of a person.

And so, the distinction is draw between those who worship idols – for whom God is hidden – and Israel – for whom God is revealed in salvation.  And we need to recognize that when Israel is mentioned here, it is spiritual Israel, not biological Israel, because the idol worshippers were members of biological Israel.

Paul writes, “But it is not as though the word of God has failed. For not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel, and not all are children of Abraham because they are his offspring, but ‘Through Isaac shall your offspring be named.’ This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as offspring” (Romans 9:6-8, ESV).

In other words, God chose a biological nation, Israel, to be the people through whom the Law, the Prophets, and the Savior would come, but the true Israel are all those who believe in the Savior God sent – Jesus.

God is hidden to all those who do not believe in the Savior, Jesus.

Second, God is not hidden.

God has not concealed Himself and made it impossible for the world to know that He exists and sends the Savior to make all those who believe right with Him.

“For thus says the LORD, who created the heavens (he is God!), who formed the earth and made it (he established it; he did not create it empty, he formed it to be inhabited!): ‘I am the LORD, and there is no other.’”

Anyone who looks at the created order understand that God exists.  God is the Creator and did not leave everything in chaos, but made the Creation into a logical, rational system of varieties that scream out God’s existence.

Paul writes, “For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So, they are without excuse” (Romans 1:19-20, ESV).

God has created everything with purpose, so everyone knows God exists – is convinced that God exists – and knows God’s Attributes, so they understand that the Savior is necessary.

God is not hidden – the Creation reveals Him.

“’I did not speak in secret, in a land of darkness; I did not say to the offspring of Jacob, “Seek me in vain.” I the LORD speak the truth; I declare what is right.’”

God is also known through His Word.  God’s revelation of Himself is a spoken revelation.  God has revealed Himself through the books of the Bible.  And we see in the books of the Bible that God calls all people to Himself – God calls all people to repent and believe in Him and the Savior.  When God calls Jacob – and the whole world to Himself – God does not do this to taunt and frustrate all those who will believe – it is an honest call to all people to come, repent, and believe.

It is also in God’s spoken Word, recorded as the Bible, that we understand that God is the definer of what is true and what is right.  All true morality is based on the foundation of what God has said is true and right.  And so, God is known because what He says is true and right is what people generally believe is true and right, and there must be something outside of ourselves and greater than us which is the foundation for our belief in what is true and right.  There must be an authority behind our claims of what is true and right – something greater and outside of ourselves.

“’Assemble yourselves and come; draw near together, you survivors of the nations! They have no knowledge who carry about their wooden idols, and keep on praying to a god that cannot save. Declare and present your case; let them take counsel together! Who told this long ago? Who declared it of old? Was it not I, the LORD? And there is no other god besides me, a righteous God and a Savior; there is none besides me.’”

God commands the nations to come to Him – Jews and Gentiles – every people who will ever be.  And God rebukes the idolaters saying that God told them to bring their idols and argue their superiority before Him years ago, and the answer has always been the same:  there is only One God, the righteous God, the Savior, and there is no other God.  Everyone knows He is God, the only God, the only Savior, the God Who has made Himself known through the Creation and through His Word.

God is not hidden.  To anyone who has eyes to see and ears to hear, God is not hidden.

            Third, God calls all people and peoples to true conversion.

“’Turn to me and be saved, all the ends of the earth! For I am God, and there is no other.’

Conversion – or repentance – means turning one hundred and eighty degrees from where you are.  God commands all peoples and all people to repent and turn and convert to God, the only Savior, because there is only One God, and He is the God of the Bible – all others are idols and worthless blasphemes.

 “’By myself I have sworn; from my mouth has gone out in righteousness a word that shall not return: ‘To me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear allegiance.’

God shall not fail to accomplish what He has set out to do.  God has sworn by Himself to save a people for Himself and for His Glory and it will happen, because God cannot swear by anything greater than Himself.  For God to fail in this would mean that God would no longer exist, which is impossible.

So, God sends out His Word.  Christianity is the religion of the Word.  Early on, Christians were called, “the people of the book.”  We don’t look for mystical revelations and consult our bellybuttons, God has spoken and His Word is written, so we know Who God is and what He has done in history and what He requires of us – and especially we who believe.

The Word that has gone out is that every knee will bow, and every tongue swear allegiance of God.

Paul writes, “Why do you pass judgment on your brother? Or you, why do you despise your brother? For we will all stand before the judgment seat of God; for it is written, ‘As I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God’” (Romans 14:10-11, ESV).

And, “Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Philippians 2:9-11, ESV).

Notice what we are told – among all the creatures that bow before God and the Savior to confess Him and worship Him – are every human who ever lives.  Believers and non-believers will fall before Him on the last day – in the judgment.  Those who never believe will fall before Him in terror and agony; those who believe will fall before Him in everlasting joy.  Every human will acknowledge the Truth of God – whether they like it or not.  God will be glorified in judgment and salvation.

 “’Only in the LORD, it shall be said of me, are righteousness and strength; to him shall come and be ashamed all who were incensed against him.’

The true conversion of all those who believe is accomplished by God in such a way that God is proven righteous and strong, and all those who never believe savingly in Jesus will come and be ashamed on the last day.

God is righteous in the conversion – in the salvation – of the people He has chosen.  God is morally right.  He is just in making a people for Himself for this reason:  the Savior both perfectly keeps the Law of God and credits that moral perfection to all who believe and He pays the debt to God for all the sins that believers ever commit.  So, God’s Grace and Justice are satisfied.

 “In the LORD all the offspring of Israel shall be justified and shall glory.”

What a day it will be for all we who believe – the Israel of God – when we are brought into the Kingdom of God in all its fullness and have eternal joy with our Savior!

God is hidden to those who do not believe savingly in Jesus.

God is not hidden – He is obvious in Creation and His Word.

God calls all people and peoples to true conversion, which is accomplished by God Alone.

Let us pray:

Almighty God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, You chose a people for Yourself before the foundation of the world and we have spiritually blinded ourselves to You through our first parents’ sin.  Thank You for choosing a people for Yourself, for opening our eyes and changing out our hearts, for proclaiming Yourself in the Creation and Your salvation in Your Word.  Empower us by the Holy Spirit to show You and Your salvation to those who do not yet believe and be pleased to draw many to Yourself in the salvation merited by Your Son.  For it is in Jesus’ Name we pray, Amen.

"Beyond Questioning" Sermon: Isaiah 45:9-13 (video)

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IGxV2UigXc0&feature=youtu.be

"Beyond Questioning" Sermon: Isaiah 45:9-13 (manuscript)

 

“Beyond Questioning”

[Isaiah 45:9-13]

October 11/18, 2020 YouTube

            God explains to Jerusalem that He is going to raise up a pagan king named Cyrus in about one hundred and seventy years.  This will be after Jerusalem has been in captivity for seventy years.  And God says that He is Sovereign over the life of Cyrus.  God will raise him up and work through him to conquer the nations and eventually send Jerusalem back to the land with the materials to rebuild the city and the Temple.

            God explains to Jerusalem that He is the God of History and He has plans and purposes that will come to pass for all of Creation.

            And we don’t have to imagine what the response of Jerusalem is to this because of this morning’s text.

            “What’s wrong with You, God?  You’re going to raise up a pagan king and make the way for him to destroy nations and become extremely powerful and then send us back to the land.  Why don’t You raise up a hero from among our own people?  Aren’t we Your chosen people?  What will it look like if You use a pagan king to restore Your people?  You haven’t thought this through.  This will make fools of us and You.  Do You understand?”

            And God responds:

            First, God is beyond questioning.

            “Woe to him who strives with him who formed him, a pot among earthen pots! Does the clay say to him who forms it, ‘What are you making?’ or ‘Your work has no handles’? Woe to him who says to a father, ‘What are you begetting?’ or to a woman, ‘With what are you in labor?’”  

            God tells Jerusalem that her complaint is absurd.

            “Are you out of your minds?  Are you really going to fight against the One Who made You?  Are you, like one pot among many pots that the Potter has made, going to rise up and say you were made wrong?  Is the clay going to rise up against the Potter and demand to know what the Potter is making or why the thing the Potter is making doesn’t have handles?”

            Similarly, as Paul explains that God chooses some people for salvation and allows the rest to be judged in their sin, he writes, “But who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, ‘Why have you made me like this?’ Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use? What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory—even us whom he has called, not from the Jews only but also from the Gentiles?” (Romans 9:20-24, ESV).

            We have the history of Job, who loses his wealth and loses his children, and his wife denies God, and Job suffers physically, and by the wisdom of his friends, and finally Job cries out for answers and says, “Oh, that I had one to hear me! (Here is my signature! Let the Almighty answer me!) Oh, that I had the indictment written by my adversary! Surely I would carry it on my shoulder; I would bind it on me as a crown; I would give him an account of all my steps; like a prince I would approach him” (Job 31:35-37, ESV).

            “God.  Are you listening?  What did I do?  Will You answer me and explain Yourself?  Why are You doing this to me?  Why don’t You explain Yourself?  If I sinned, I will own my sin and it’s punishment but keeping me in the dark isn’t fair.”

            The other example is about pregnancy – questioning God on things He has not revealed is like demanding man explain to you why he is having a child.  “How can you bring a child into this world when he will die as the climate changes and the world becomes uninhabitable?  Don’t you care about people?” Or demanding to know what a woman is giving birth to. “Is it a boy or a girl?  You’re going to want it to be a boy.  At least a boy can do things around the house and be a help.  A girl is only a burden.  You must raise her up and then pay for her wedding.  But she could marry someone wealthy and support you in your old age.  And the boy might be a slacker and not be worth anything.  What are you having?  What will his life be like?”

            God does not give us all the answers we would like.

            And we understand this.  Things happen that don’t seem right to us.  In November – or whenever it is settled – it is likely that half the country will cry out to God, “How could You allow Donald Trump to serve another four years?” Or “How could You allow Joe Biden to become President of the United States?”  “What were You thinking?”

            What we need to recognize is that God presides over the fortunes of His people.  In other words, God is Sovereign over His people – all we who believe in Jesus savingly – God does what will bring His Plan to the glorious end He intends – and for the good of those who love Him (cf., Romans 8:28). And we do not have the right to demand that He answer our questions.

            God has a plan, and it will come to pass exactly as He intended from before the Creation.  God does not have to correct course or change due to unforeseen circumstances.  No, everything that happens – even evil and sin – are part of God’s Plan, though God never does evil or sins and does not force anyone to do evil or sin.

            We remember that Joseph is sold into slavery by his brothers, and when they meet up years later, Joseph says, “As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today” (Genesis 50:20, ESV).

            In Joseph’s case, he is given an answer as to why God gives him the life he lives.  But that is not always the case.  We can ask questions of God, we see that happen all the time in the Psalms, but we are not right to question the Authority of God. God does whatsoever He pleases to accomplish His Will.  So, God is beyond questioning in this way. 

            We can ask God if He willing do such and such, but we are not to ask God Who He thinks He is to do such and such.  God’s Authority and His use of it are beyond questioning.  Jerusalem is wrong to ask God what is wrong with Him for using Cyrus.

            Peter, writing to Christians suffering persecution, writes, “Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you. Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. Resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world. And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you. To him be the dominion forever and ever. Amen” (I Peter 5:6-11, ESV).

            For example, God is Sovereign over Covid. And God has His reasons for its existing and for each person who gets sick or dies from it.  We have no right to raise our fists to God and ask Him why He thought including Covid in His Plan was a good idea.  Peter reminds us to humble ourselves under the Mighty Hand of God.

            If God wants us to know, He will make it known, if God does not want His reasons known, we have no right – it is a sin – to accuse God’s actions because we do not have an explicit reason from God.

            Why did God choose to use a pagan king to deliver Jerusalem? God’s Plan is beyond questioning.  Be humble.  Be thankful for all you have and are.

            Second, God is Sovereign.

            Continuing with the theme we have touched on, God explains that not only is it wrong to question Him as an accuser, but God is also Sovereign over all things, so He is absolutely in control at all times.

            “Thus says the LORD, the Holy One of Israel, and the one who formed him: ‘Ask me of things to come; will you command me concerning my children and the work of my hands? I made the earth and created man on it; it was my hands that stretched out the heavens, and I commanded all their host.’”

            God says, “it is one thing to question and accuse Me like the clay to the potter or like outsiders to the parents of an impending child, but it is even more intolerable to receive accusatory questions about how I sovereignly carry out My Plans for My people and for the Creation that I created. Don’t You think I deserve some credit – even if You don’t understand and think you would do things differently – as the Creator of everything that is and the One Who called you to be My people?”

            Jerusalem shaking her fist at God for choosing Cyrus to be a great power and the one to free Jerusalem from captivity and supply her needs for her return and rebuilding is not unlike Jesus’ explaining His suffering and death to His disciples and Peter responding, “And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, saying, ‘Far be it from you, Lord! This shall never happen to you’” (Matthew 16:22, ESV).

            Jesus reveals that He will suffer and die, and Peter’s response is to say, “You don’t know what You’re talking about.  Stop talking that way.  It will never happen.  I won’t allow it.  If You tell me that’s God’s Plan, then God is off His rocker.  No, it will never happen.”

            Really, Peter?  You don’t think that the God Who created you and all of Creation might be a little more knowledgeable and be sovereignly in control over this – even if you don’t understand how it will all work out?

            How will Covid work out?  How will the election work out?  I’m sure we all know the best way these and other things should work out – and we tell God what He is to do.  Yet, the God Who created all of Creation, is sovereignly control of these things and all of history, and we must bow before His Will in humility, even when we don’t know what it is.

            Know that the God Who is Sovereign over the Creation is sovereign over history.

“’I have stirred him up in righteousness, and I will make all his ways level; he shall build my city and set my exiles free, not for price or reward,’ says the LORD of hosts.”

God says, “You can question My sanity and My choices as much as You want, but what I have ordained in history will come to pass.  I have stirred up Cyrus in righteousness – you cannot show that I have done something morally wrong is using him to deliver you.  I will make his ways level – he will accomplish everything I have put on his heart and in his mind, and he will be the one to free Jerusalem and to build the city and the Temple in accordance with My eternal plan.  He will not do this because I have bribed him, but because I am the Sovereign of History and set it down that it should happen.”

The prophet Ezra tells us that this all came to pass as God ordained:

“In the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, that the word of the LORD by the mouth of Jeremiah might be fulfilled, the LORD stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia, so that he made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom and also put it in writing:

“’Thus says Cyrus king of Persia: The LORD, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth, and he has charged me to build him a house at Jerusalem, which is in Judah. Whoever is among you of all his people, may his God be with him, and let him go up to Jerusalem, which is in Judah, and rebuild the house of the LORD, the God of Israel—he is the God who is in Jerusalem. And let each survivor, in whatever place he sojourns, be assisted by the men of his place with silver and gold, with goods and with beasts, besides freewill offerings for the house of God that is in Jerusalem’” (Ezra 1:1-4, ESV).

God is Sovereign.

So, how should we act when we don’t think God is doing the right thing, or when we wonder if He is truly Sovereign?  Let us stay in our place, which is in the hands of our Sovereign God.

Let us consider Job’s response, recalling God’s questions to him:

“I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted. ‘Who is this that hides counsel without knowledge?’ Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know. ‘Hear, and I will speak; I will question you, and you make it known to me.’  I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you; therefore I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes.” (Job 42:2-6, ESV).

When we are talking about the Authority and Sovereignty of God to act according to His Eternal Plan, we are not to question if God hasn’t made a bad decision. Rather, we are to receive what our loving Father has for us.

Let us pray:

Almighty God, there are many things we don’t understand, and You have told us to come to You in prayer, but we sin if we come to You to criticize or question Your Plan or Sovereignty.  Humble us and help us to trust You whatever Your Plan is for us.  In Jesus’ Name, Amen.

Review: "40 Questions About Typology and Allegory" (video)

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ECBQfG6_gDw&feature=youtu.be

Review: "40 Questions About Typology and Allegory" (manuscript)

 

            I have now read three of the volumes in the “40 Questions” series put out by Kregel.  40 Questions about Typology and Allegory by Michael Chase is my favorite thus far.

            The first section of the book – questions 1 and 2 – answers who or what the Bible is about (Jesus) and what forms of writing we find in Scripture.

            The second section of the book – questions 3 through 24 – examine typology.

            Chase offers this definition: “a biblical type is a person, office, place, situation, event, or thing in salvation history that anticipates, shares correspondence with, escalates towards, and resolves in its antitype” (38).

            He divides this section into three subsections – the first looking at what typology is and whether it is a valid pursuit in biblical study, the second, a look at the historical understanding of typology from the nascent church through today, and the third, a look at representative typologies in each of the books of the Old Testament.

            Similarly, in the third section of the book, as Chase turns his attention to allegory, he divides his discussion into three subsections.

            In the first, he looks at whether allegory is valid in biblical understanding.  He defines, “an allegory is a passage that says one thing in order to say something else” (193).

            In the second, he looks at the use of allegory through all of church history.

            In the third, he identifies allegory in every book of the Bible.

            In the final question of the book, he looks at how one may wisely use typology and allegory in understanding, preaching, and teaching the Scripture.

            I found this an absolutely exciting book for all three reasons he writes:  I better understand what typology and allegory are, I see how they have been used throughout church history, and I see how one can wisely identify type and allegory in the Scripture for study, teaching, and preaching.

            This is a book I will come back to time and time again both as a refresher and for guidance as I handle God’s Word.

            The book ends with a selected bibliography, and based on the quotes in the book, I am going to follow up by reading some of the books in the bibliography.

            Highly recommended for theological students, Bible study leaders, teachers, and pastors.

            [This review appears on my blog, my YouTube channel, Amazon.com, and Goodreads.com, and Kregel.com. I received this book for free in exchange for an honest review.]

Review: "Death at the Bar" (video)

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UP5LYXq3gpY&feature=youtu.be

Review: "Death at the Bar" (manuscript)

 

            It could have been any evening.  A group of friends gathered at a bar to have some drinks, laugh, and play darts.  But the fun ends with one of the friends pricks his finger on one of the darts and promptly dies of rat poison.

The dart is tested, and it has rat poison on the shaft.  But how could anyone know that he would prick his finger with that dart, and that enough rat poison would get into his system, and that he would actually be the one to pick up the poisoned dart and prick his finger?

These are the questions Inspector Alleyn is faced with in Ngaio Marsh’s Death at the Bar.  Have a drink and see if you can figure it out.

            [This review appears on my blog, my YouTube channel, Amazon.com, and Goodreads.com.]

"The Sovereign Use of a Pagan King" Sermon: Isaiah 45:1-8 (video)

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-8jnKVxVVM&feature=youtu.be

"The Sovereing Use of a Pagan King" Sermon: Isaiah 45:1-8 (manuscript)

 

“The Sovereign Use of a Pagan King”

[Isaiah 45:1-8]

October 4, 2020 YouTube

            At the end of last week’s reading, we saw God say that Cyrus will be the shepherd God uses to free Israel and Judah, send them back to the land, and see them rebuilt Jerusalem and the Temple.  We said that who this prophecy is about would likely confuse the people of Isaiah’s day, because it would not be fulfilled by Cyrus for about one hundred and seventy years.

            Before we get into today’s text, I want to note that there have been two main responses to this in the field of theology:  one is to say that Isaiah, the prophet of that time period, could not have possibly known who Cyrus was, so this text was added in after the exile to make it look like there had been a prophecy that named Cyrus – this is what I was taught in seminary.  To embrace this view is to say that the Bible is full of lies and errors. The second response is to say that the Sovereign and Almighty God knows everything from all of history, so while Isaiah and the people of the day did not know who Cyrus was, the God of History certainly did and ordained him to do exactly what God told Isaiah he would do and that is exactly what happened.  I put it to you that this second view is the biblical one.

            God continues to speak about Cyrus in this morning’s text, and we see:

            First, God is sovereign over the life of Cyrus.

“Thus says the LORD to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have grasped, to subdue nations before him and to loose the belts of kings, to open doors before him that gates may not be closed: ‘I will go before you and level the exalted places, I will break in pieces the doors of bronze and cut through the bars of iron, I will give you the treasures of darkness and the hoards in secret places, that you may know that it is I, the LORD, the God of Israel, who call you by your name.’”

This is what YHWH says to His anointed – and we remember that kings and priests were anointed – they were marked out for God’s use.  The word “anointed” can also be translated as “Christ.”  Cyrus is the Christ of God for this situation.

God knew him before he was conceived, and God chose him for this task and took him by his right hand.  That is, the authority and power that Cyrus would have is given to him by God for God to use for God’s ends – for His purpose.  God is Sovereign over Cyrus, as He is over all of His creation.  You and I and every person and every thing in all of creation were created to glorify God by obeying Him – by doing His Will.

What God will do with Cyrus – through the power God gives him – God will cause him to overthrow nations, to take down kings, and to open up kingdoms and ways that have been closed to him but will then be wide open to him and stay wide open for him.  By the power and guidance that God gives Cyrus, he will become a great conqueror for the Medo-Persian empire.

And that’s not just Cyrus – every leader is put in place by God and empowered by God – for our good or our discipline – and God uses leaders to achieve His purposes in the rise and in the fall of kingdoms.  So, we are to pray for our leaders, that they will do good and not evil – that they will seek to protect the people under their watch and not use them for their own gain.  And it will not always be easy to tell how God is using each leader, but we are to pray for them – even that they would come to believe that Jesus is God the Savior.

God tells Cyrus that God will level the roads before him (not literally) but God will make it easier for him to conquer. By various means God will shatter bronze and iron (again not literally) but God will keep the nations from being able to stop him from conquering.

And God will give to Cyrus all the treasures of the kingdoms that he conquers.  And the reason that God is doing all these things for Cyrus is so Cyrus will acknowledge and understand that YHWH, the God of Israel, is the God Who is doing all these things through him and for him.

God would raise up a man who would have been a fairly insignificant governor in the history of the Roman Empire except for his ordering the crucifixion of one of the Jewish rabbis.  And Jesus told Pilate that God had raised him up for this purpose:

“So Pilate said to him, ‘You will not speak to me? Do you not know that I have authority to release you and authority to crucify you?’ Jesus answered him, ‘You would have no authority over me at all unless it had been given you from above. Therefore he who delivered me over to you has the greater sin’” (John 19:10-11, ESV).

God is sovereign in the life of Cyrus.

Second, God has purposes for all He does.

“For the sake of my servant Jacob, and Israel my chosen, I call you by your name, I name you, though you do not know me. I am the LORD, and there is no other, besides me there is no God; I equip you, though you do not know me, that people may know, from the rising of the sun and from the west, that there is none besides me; I am the LORD, and there is no other.”

God has a purpose for Cyrus.

God chose Cyrus to be His servant in the freeing of Israel and Judah so Cyrus would understand that God chose him, God gave him the authority and power to be the conqueror he became, and the God of Israel and Judah claims to be the One True God.

The historian, Josephus, who wrote his histories around 71 A.D., noted that Cyrus read the book of Isaiah, so he knew about the prophecies concerning himself (https://rsc.byu.edu/isaiah-prophets/scientific-analysis-isaiah-authorship).

God showed Himself to Cyrus in this way so Cyrus would have no excuse in his response to the question of Who God is.

However, as God says twice, Cyrus did not know Him.  Despite knowing the prophecies about himself and seeing them come true – despite being told that He is the God of Israel and Judah Who does all these thing for him and uses him for God’s sake, there is no evidence that Cyrus ever came to saving belief in the God of Israel and Judah.

God has a purpose for Israel and Judah.

God’s purpose for Israel and Judah is to show that God is ever faithful in His promises – God does not send His people away forever, but always disciplines them and brings them back as they repent.  God’s people are His forever, and He will not lose one of His elect.

Jesus said of all those who believe: “I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand. I and the Father are one” (John 10:28-30, ESV).

The ultimate promise of God that God would not fail to keep as part of His purpose for Israel and Judah is that Jesus, the Savior, would be born in Bethlehem of Judah, so all those who believe will be saved.

“But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah, who are too little to be among the clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to be ruler in Israel, whose coming forth is from of old, from ancient days” (Micah 5:2, ESV).

God has a purpose for Israel and Judah.

And God has a purpose for the world.

God’s purpose for the world is that the world would come to believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God, the Only Savior.  Of course, when we say that the world comes to believe, we don’t mean that every person comes to believe – we know that not every person does come to believe savingly in Jesus.  

Rather, we are told that there will be people from every type of people who come to believe savingly in Jesus:

“And they sang a new song, saying, ‘Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation, and you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God, and they shall reign on the earth’” (Revelation 5:9-10, ESV).

The Church will not fail to be revealed until the end of the age when she is brought into the Kingdom and married to Jesus – perfectly united with Him.

Paul explains:

“’Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.’ This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church” (Ephesians 5:31-32, ESV).

God has purposes for all He does.

Third, God is Sovereign over history.

“I form light and create darkness; I make well-being and create calamity; I am the LORD, who does all these things.”

As we hear these words, we are reminded of Job’s rebuke to his wife, ‘But he said to her, “You speak as one of the foolish women would speak. Shall we receive good from God, and shall we not receive evil?’ In all this Job did not sin with his lips” (Job 2:10, ESV).

And these texts give us pause: “I understand God forming light and well-being and good, but God is the creator of darkness and calamity and evil?  Doesn’t that make God evil?  Doesn’t that make God a sinner?”

No, God never sins.  God never does evil.

What we are being told here is that God is Absolutely Sovereign.  Everything that exists was called into being by God.  Nothing exists that God did not call into being.  Nothing would exist had God not called it into being.  However, humans are responsible for their actions.

Demons and humans choose to sin and do evil.  Evil occurs in nature due to human sin.  But God does not force anyone to sin or do evil.  God allows sin and evil because we choose it.  That does not mean that we can force God to do something.  It means that God chooses to allow us to sin and do evil.  God will not always allow this – in the Kingdom, God will not allow any sin or evil.

How exactly does this all come to pass?

The best we can say is what Paul says, “Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways! ‘For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor?’ ‘Or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid?’ For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen” (Romans 11:33-36, ESV).

Even so, this should comfort us – that no matter what we go through – good or bad – no matter what leader is in power – good or evil – no matter whatever comes to pass – God is Absolutely Sovereignly in control.  Everything is happening according to God’s plan.  Nothing is out of control.  God has not “lost it.”  God is bringing all things together to His Glory and the good of those who love Him.  So, as pain and chaos whirl about us, we can even say then, “God is in control and knows what is happening.  He is Sovereign over it, and I trust Him.  Though I cannot trust another person or that I will make it through the next moment.  I trust in God my Savior.”

“‘Shower, O heavens, from above, and let the clouds rain down righteousness; let the earth open, that salvation and righteousness may bear fruit; let the earth cause them both to sprout; I the LORD have created it.’”

            On behalf of Cyrus, Israel and Judah, and the world, God reigns down righteousness – He causes all those who believe to be credited with the righteousness of the Savior, Jesus.  The Sovereign Power that brought all things into existence now gifts salvation, righteousness, and the fruit of salvation to His people.

            The return from the Babylonian Captivity is a foreshadowing – a type – of the future redemption of God’s people through the work of Jesus.  Just as God delivered and freed His people from captivity in Babylon, God would free His people from captivity to sin and the devil and deliver us eternally through His Son.

            God is Sovereign over history.

            Our response should be one of trust and fathomless amazement:  God uses a pagan emperor to deliver His people from captivity.  God used a pagan people to crucify His Son that He would rise from the dead and deliver His people from sin and the devil.

            God is Sovereign over the life of Cyrus.

            God has purposes for all He does.

            God is Sovereign over history.

            So, we can trust God for everything in every moment.  There may be days when that is difficult, but God is Sovereign, and we are not.  God knows what is best, and we don’t.  As difficult as it may be some times, we ought to submit to what God has said and trust Him that all His promises are true, and we will be received into the eternal Kingdom of our God and Savior, because He is Sovereign.

            Let us pray:

            Almighty God, there are times when it seems everything is in the world and in our lives are out of control.  Thank You for showing us that every person, nation, action, and event occur in accordance with Your Sovereign Plan.  Help us to know You better through Your Word and take comfort in Your Sovereignty and as our loving Father.  And as You have commanded, we pray for our President and First Lady that You would deliver them from Covid and draw them to You in the salvation merited by Jesus. For it is in Jesus’ Name we pray, Amen.