Speaker 1: Let's take our Bible and go to the book of Isaiah.
Speaker 1: The book of Isaiah, we're going to be in chapter 44 and chapter 45 today, at least a portion of chapter 45.
Speaker 1: And if you don't have a Bible, you can find a pew Bible in front of you and turn to page 641, two or three.
Speaker 1: Somewhere in that region you'll find Isaiah, chapter 44.
Speaker 1: In May 1940, britain stood on the edge of catastrophe.
Speaker 1: Nazi forces were sweeping across Europe and it looked like invasion of Great Britain was coming.
Speaker 1: It was in that moment of national crisis that there was a change of government and Winston Churchill was the newly appointed prime minister and he was making his first address to Parliament after being so appointed.
Speaker 1: And when he did, he gave a speech that has echoed and will continue to echo down the halls of history.
Speaker 1: He didn't sugarcoat the problem at all.
Speaker 1: In fact he was very clear.
Speaker 1: He said I have nothing to offer you but blood, toil, tears and sweat.
Speaker 1: But he didn't stop at the hardship.
Speaker 1: Churchill, in that speech, cast a vision of resolve and hope.
Speaker 1: He answered the purposes of his government, but he also addressed the aim that his government would form, and he answered it with this one word, that the aim of his government was victory.
Speaker 1: Victory at all costs, victory in spite of terror, victory, however long and hard the road might be, for without victory there would be no survival.
Speaker 1: Churchill's speech didn't change the facts of the matter.
Speaker 1: It didn't make the Nazis disappear off of the continent of Europe, but it changed the spirit of the people.
Speaker 1: It reminded them that, amid the coming doom and destruction, that there was a future worth fighting for.
Speaker 1: And fight they did.
Speaker 1: And in a similar way, isaiah, here in chapters 44 and 45, is speaking to a people that are moving toward desolation and destruction.
Speaker 1: But he cast for them a future worth believing in.
Speaker 1: A future worth believing in, a future worth believing in.
Speaker 1: In a few short years, the temple would fall, jerusalem would be razed and the people would be exiled to Babylon.
Speaker 1: But God, like a sovereign far greater than any wartime leader, pauses in this section to speak hope Judgment, yes, was on the horizon, but so was God's restoration.
Speaker 1: And so, in a stunning pause, amid all of the warnings to these people, the Lord turns them toward his comfort and he assures them of his covenant love that it's not been extinguished by their iniquity, that there was a future worth believing in.
Speaker 1: This is the kind of God we're going to look at in just a moment in these two chapters, one who speaks the end from the beginning, one who speaks despair with promises and hope, and one who doesn't just offer vague encouragements but speaks with breathtaking particularity and precision, and he reminds the people, and he reminds us, of his tender relationship to them, of his unwavering commitment to act on their behalf and of his sovereign power to orchestrate history itself to fulfill those purposes.
Speaker 1: So precise and so exacting is his plan that in this section of scripture he points out one man, 150 years before his birth, who will enact his purposes.
Speaker 1: Who will enact his purposes.
Speaker 1: And so we come this morning into a passage that calls us into a future hope beyond our present.
Speaker 1: It invites us to trust the Lord, who not only is powerful but personal, who is faithful, who is near, who is determined to redeem, not just to comfort us but to give us confidence in our day, because we have a future worth believing in.
Speaker 1: And these anchors that God will declare here about his covenant love being unshaken and his sovereign power being precise and his redemptive plan being personal, are meant to lift our hearts in times of heaviness and hardship.
Speaker 1: And so let's look at this passage.
Speaker 1: Let's look at this passage and discover this God who still speaks, who still redeems, who still calls and still provides for us a future worth believing in.
Speaker 1: He lays down the groundwork in verse 24, in chapter 44, by declaring that he is the faithful creator and redeemer.
Speaker 1: God is the faithful creator and redeemer.
Speaker 1: Take a look at verse 24 with me.
Speaker 1: This is what the Lord, your redeemer, who formed you from the womb, says I am the Lord who made everything, who stretched out the heavens by myself, who alone spread out the earth.
Speaker 1: Well, this big passage begins with a pretty powerful declaration of identity.
Speaker 1: Right, he's not just a God.
Speaker 1: He is the God, the Lord, who is both creator of all things and also redeemer.
Speaker 1: Let's take those two words.
Speaker 1: First of all, creator in verse 24.
Speaker 1: Here Yahweh is making this profound declaration that he is the sovereign power of all things, intimately involved in his creation.
Speaker 1: He emphasizes here that he is the one who created the heavens and the earth.
Speaker 1: He stretches out the heavens, he spreads out the earth.
Speaker 1: But notice how he says it here who stretch out the heavens by myself?
Speaker 1: Who alone spreads out the earth?
Speaker 1: There's a double emphasis here that he is the one who made these things and he did so unassisted, unrivaled and unchallenged, that he is the only God and he is the one who made these things.
Speaker 1: And so he acts with unmatched authority and purposed intentionality, not only to form the cosmos, but also to call the people that he says I formed you in the womb from before their birth.
Speaker 1: Now, this declaration that God did these things by myself, he says, or who alone did these things is not just poetic, it's polemic.
Speaker 1: You see, he is stating these things in stark contrast to the Babylonian creation narrative, and you can learn about that by reading the Enuma Elish, which speaks of a polytheistic cosmos that established the creation, and the story centers on a battle between two gods, marduk and Tiamat.
Speaker 1: And Marduk defeated Tiamat, split her body in half and one part of it became the expanse and the other part of it became the earth.
Speaker 1: And so creation, in this myth, was not a result of sovereign will, but was the aftermath of divine warfare.
Speaker 1: And in this world filled with idols and imagined powers and myths, god here declares that he is the creator, that he alone acted, no rival, no helper, no equal.
Speaker 1: And this is the God who speaks Now.
Speaker 1: He's just laying a foundation here for what's about to come.
Speaker 1: This is only the prelude.
Speaker 1: This is the porch.
Speaker 1: He's not even got us into the house yet.
Speaker 1: Another foundation is that he's the redeemer.
Speaker 1: He's not even got us into the house yet.
Speaker 1: Another foundation is that he's the redeemer.
Speaker 1: He's not only creator of the cosmos, but he's also the redeemer of his people.
Speaker 1: This creation that he's made is not chaotic, not accidental, but it is his purpose to act and it's rooted in his covenant love and his redemptive design.
Speaker 1: And it's rooted in his covenant love and his redemptive design.
Speaker 1: To be formed by this God is to be known, is to be loved and is to be purposed.
Speaker 1: He's telling us here that we're not the accident of biological mistakes and happenstance, nor are we the product of imagined wars of mythology, but we are made by God with intentionality and purpose.
Speaker 1: The Babylonians viewed humanity as nothing more than the blood of a slain God and that we existed primarily to serve those gods and to relieve them of any labor they might have to do.
Speaker 1: The Babylonians had these myths in order to prop up their political ideologies and to legitimize their imperial rule, to portray the gods as capricious and who asserted themselves through dominion and who asserted themselves through dominion.
Speaker 1: But unlike that, god speaks.
Speaker 1: He tells us that we are not simply created in order to perpetuate the kingly hierarchy, in order to live our lives in human subservience to the gods, but rather he has come and he speaks here to the people of Israel in a personal, covenant, love way.
Speaker 1: I formed you from the womb and I am your redeemer.
Speaker 1: You see, his sovereignty is not abstract, it's personal.
Speaker 1: Yes, he stretches out the heavens and, yes, he spreads the earth out by himself.
Speaker 1: His power is unmatched, but his care is personal.
Speaker 1: He is intimate.
Speaker 1: He formed them from the womb and he speaks to them not merely as the God of the galaxies, but as a God who knows them.
Speaker 1: And he speaks to us today as a God who knows our name, as a God who knows them.
Speaker 1: And he speaks to us today as a God who knows our name, as a God who knows our story, as a God who knows our struggles, as a God who is faithful to redeem that which is broken within us.
Speaker 1: This declaration is just preparation, because in just a moment, he's going to introduce us to a person named Cyrus, a pagan king who's going to be an instrument of his redemptive purposes.
Speaker 1: But even Cyrus himself is just a foreshadowing of a greater Redeemer who is to come, jesus Christ, who redeems not just the people of Israel but people all over the world.
Speaker 1: Not just the people of Israel, but people all over the world.
Speaker 1: The God who made all things is a God who is faithful to redeem broken people.
Speaker 1: Let's move on to the second point.
Speaker 1: He's not only the faithful creator and redeemer, but God is also the destroyer of false powers and empty promises.
Speaker 1: We see this in verses 25 to 27.
Speaker 1: Again, right in the middle of this declaration, he says in verse 25 that he is the Lord who destroys the omens of the false prophets and makes fools of diviners and confounds the wise and makes their knowledge foolish and confounds the wise and makes their knowledge foolish.
Speaker 1: Now he's confronting the spiritual deception of Babylon, not just their creative myths and their setting up of imperial powers that people might be seen as subservient to the gods, but now he's confronting these liars, these diviners, these so-called wise men, all these people who claim to have supernatural insight, these astrologers, these magicians, these prophets who promise peace and prosperity, who spoke to the elite of Babylon and claimed spiritual insight so that they might continue the control of their empire and gave them such assurances through prophecies and omens.
Speaker 1: Well, god says he's going to render them powerless, he's going to expose them for being the frauds that they are.
Speaker 1: And you see, he doesn't just merely ignore their falsehoods.
Speaker 1: The scriptures here tell us he's going to bring them to nothing, that he is actually going to frustrate the signs of these liars and he's going to make fools of their wise men.
Speaker 1: He's going to ensure that their predictions will crumble and that their wisdom will collapse.
Speaker 1: In contrast, he says he's going to do something else, in verse 26, who confirms the message of his servants and fulfills the counsel of his messengers.
Speaker 1: Who says to Jerusalem she will be inhabited.
Speaker 1: And to the cities of Judah they will be rebuilt and I will restore her ruins.
Speaker 1: Who says to the depths of the sea be dry and I will dry up your rivers.
Speaker 1: What is God saying?
Speaker 1: He is saying that he is not only issuing out prophets who are going to make, in just a second, a very dazzling prophecy, but that he's going to confirm their word to be historically true and that they are going to accomplish his purposes.
Speaker 1: What is that purpose?
Speaker 1: That Jerusalem will be inhabited, that the cities of Judah will be rebuilt.
Speaker 1: Now remember, isaiah is speaking before the exile has even happened.
Speaker 1: Yet Jerusalem is not yet surrounded by Babylon, the temple has not yet been torn down, the Holy of Holies has not yet been desecrated, the people have not yet been torn into exile.
Speaker 1: He is speaking to them because he is telling these things before they occur, so that they might know that there's a future worth believing in, despite what's about to happen.
Speaker 1: Now, where do we go for truth today?
Speaker 1: Some people go to the horoscopes, some people go to the stock market.
Speaker 1: All these influencers, these people who seem to hold mystical ability of being able to tell us what's down the road.
Speaker 1: The scriptures here tell us that God alone speaks the truth, and God alone speaks fully and clearly about it, that we are to trust his word because it proves true.
Speaker 1: We're not to be swayed by these whispering words of cultural mysticism or spiritual trends, because God's promises are precise and enduring.
Speaker 1: Well, let's get into it, because we've only just walked up to the front of this God who is the faithful creator and redeemer.
Speaker 1: God who is the destroyer of false powers and empty promises is also the God who is the sovereign one who raises Cyrus up for redemption.
Speaker 1: Take a look at verse 28.
Speaker 1: Who says to Cyrus, my shepherd, he will fulfill all my pleasure and say to Jerusalem she will be rebuilt and the temple, its foundation, will be laid.
Speaker 1: The Lord says this to Cyrus, his anointed, whose right hand I've grasped to subdue nations before him and disarm kings, to open doors before him.
Speaker 1: Even city gates will not be shut.
Speaker 1: I will go before you and level the uneven places.
Speaker 1: I will shatter the bronze doors and cut the iron bars in two.
Speaker 1: I will give you the treasures of darkness and the riches from secret places, so that you may know that I am the Lord.
Speaker 1: I am the God of Israel, who calls you by your name.
Speaker 1: I call you by your name for the sake of my servant, jacob and Israel, my chosen one.
Speaker 1: I give a name to you, though you do not know me.
Speaker 1: I am the Lord.
Speaker 1: There is no other.
Speaker 1: There is no God but me.
Speaker 1: I will strengthen you, though you do not know me, so that all may know, from the rising of the sun to its setting, that there is no one but me.
Speaker 1: I am the Lord and there is no other.
Speaker 1: I form light and create darkness.
Speaker 1: I make success and create disaster.
Speaker 1: I am the Lord who does all these things.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's powerful, but remember it was written 150 years before this man was born.
Speaker 1: But remember it was written 150 years before this man was born.
Speaker 1: Here's the Lord exposing these false powers and demonstrating his sovereign control over history, and he's promising the restoration of Jerusalem and the rebuilding of the people before the destruction occurs.
Speaker 1: And he's going to do it through this one man, cyrus Well.
Speaker 1: Who is Cyrus Well?
Speaker 1: Cyrus was first of all a pagan idolater.
Speaker 1: His name is a name after the Persian sun god, kor.
Speaker 1: In fact, korus probably would be the better way to announce Cyrus' name.
Speaker 1: That was what it actually was, because he was named after the sun, god Kur Kurus.
Speaker 1: Herodotus tells us that Cyrus grew up as the son of a humble cattle herder, that he came from a region called Anshan, which was a tiny little vassal kingdom swallowed up by the media empire.
Speaker 1: Expecting this pagan young man, raised up in a very unimportant place, from a very humble background, to become the emperor of a mighty kingdom would be like saying, well, greenland's going to win the next World Cup.
Speaker 1: It's just not going to happen.
Speaker 1: And yet God delights in using the unlikely, and people would look at this passage, and they would look at Ezra, chapter 1 and Ezra chapter 4, and they would say of those things, how could this be?
Speaker 1: How could there be this guy who did all of this on behalf of the people of Israel?
Speaker 1: Well, in 1879, in the ruins of Babylon was found a cylinder, which we now know is the Cyrus cylinder.
Speaker 1: And if you want to see it, you go to room 52 of the British Museum and you'll be able to cast your eyes right on it.
Speaker 1: And there Cyrus writes may all the gods that I've returned to their sanctuaries ask Marduk and Nebo daily that I might have a long life.
Speaker 1: He was still a pagan.
Speaker 1: He was still a polytheistic idolater.
Speaker 1: He was a man still filled with superstition.
Speaker 1: He's one of those guys that Isaiah spoke about, that we looked at last week in verse 20, who feeds on ashes.
Speaker 1: But Cyrus was not just a political figure.
Speaker 1: He was a theological statement about the sovereignty of God, because Isaiah names him over a hundred years before his birth.
Speaker 1: People look at this and they go well, well, you know, this is just too precise and too prophetic to actually be true.
Speaker 1: It'd be like saying to someone well, we can't give you the best Oscar or the Oscar for being the best actress, because, well, your performance was too much like being true to be acting.
Speaker 1: God named Cyrus before his birth and he's putting himself on display right here False prophets, diviners, these so-called wise men I'm going to frustrate them.
Speaker 1: He positions this in this moment of time purposely to be able to say he is the God who knows all things and he's going to use this man to fulfill his precise redemptive plan.
Speaker 1: So he takes a young man named after a pagan god who grew up in an obscure place, part of a vassal small kingdom that was part of media, the media empire, who is himself a polytheist, and he's going to do something with this guy.
Speaker 1: And take a look at how he's described here in the next chapter.
Speaker 1: Well, let's back up just into 44, verse 28.
Speaker 1: He calls him my shepherd.
Speaker 1: What, my shepherd?
Speaker 1: Every Jewish person would have just shuddered at the sound of that.
Speaker 1: Why?
Speaker 1: Because their kings were called the shepherds.
Speaker 1: They were the people who were supposed to guide the nation.
Speaker 1: And now here's this pagan guy that's called by that name shepherd.
Speaker 1: Yes, because Cyrus would be the one who would guide God's people back to their land, and not because of his own wisdom, but because of God's sovereign purposes, but because of God's sovereign purposes.
Speaker 1: In verse 1 of chapter 45, cyrus is called by another name.
Speaker 1: The Lord says to Cyrus he's anointed.
Speaker 1: Now that's another shocking title.
Speaker 1: We read the description and it probably doesn't sound quite so offensive to us.
Speaker 1: Anointed Well, what does that mean?
Speaker 1: I put on some aftershave this morning and I anointed myself with that glorious smell, so you wouldn't smell what I really smell like.
Speaker 1: But when someone was anointed in those days, it was saying that he was the Lord's Messiah, the Lord's Christ.
Speaker 1: That's the word.
Speaker 1: Think about that for a moment.
Speaker 1: A pagan, polythistic ruler called Messiah the Lord's Messiah, the Lord's anointed one.
Speaker 1: Now we're starting to get a good feel for just how the Jewish people would have thought about that.
Speaker 1: That kind of wrinkles us a little bit, doesn't it?
Speaker 1: Well, that really would have wrinkled them, because this would have been outrageous for any Jewish person.
Speaker 1: This term was reserved for just a few people.
Speaker 1: Prophets, priests and kings were anointed, and only the kings were called the anointed ones.
Speaker 1: They reserved that term for people like David Cyrus.
Speaker 1: Cyrus the anointed one Well, that just shatters all their categories.
Speaker 1: That shatters prophet, priest, king categories.
Speaker 1: This man's not even a believer.
Speaker 1: Take a look at verses four and five.
Speaker 1: I call you by your name for the sake of my servant, jacob, in Israel, my chosen one.
Speaker 1: I give a name to you, though you do not know me.
Speaker 1: This is not a man who had some false pretense of messianic role.
Speaker 1: He didn't even know the Lord.
Speaker 1: You think once is not enough.
Speaker 1: Verse 5, he says it again I call you by your name for the sake of my servant, jacob, and Israel, my chosen one.
Speaker 1: I gave a name to you, though you do not know me.
Speaker 1: I am the Lord.
Speaker 1: God knows his name.
Speaker 1: God is going to use him to fulfill his purposes.
Speaker 1: Now, this is not an endorsement of Cyrus.
Speaker 1: This is God's orchestration of human history.
Speaker 1: He is playing a beautiful symphony on a broken instrument and God is going to guide this man, like a father teaches a toddler to walk.
Speaker 1: And just walk through these first few verses, whose hand I have grasped, speaking about God's ability to direct this man's movement and be the force behind his power.
Speaker 1: Verse one again I will go before him.
Speaker 1: He's going to make things happen in this man's life.
Speaker 1: I will open doors before him.
Speaker 1: He is going to have success.
Speaker 1: Verse 2, I will shatter the bronze doors and cut the iron bars into, possibly an allusion to what's going to happen when he conquers Babylon itself.
Speaker 1: Verse 3, I will give you treasures and riches.
Speaker 1: Verses 3 and 4, I call you by your name.
Speaker 1: Verse 4, I give a name to you.
Speaker 1: He's going to be renowned among his peers.
Speaker 1: Verse 5, I will strengthen you.
Speaker 1: All of these words speak about God's precise, active involvement.
Speaker 1: This is way more than just permission, and we have to ask ourselves how did this son of a cattle herder, the son of a cattle herder in the tiny district of Anshan, come to the throne in 559 BC?
Speaker 1: How did he shake the world by conquering the Median Empire in 549 BC?
Speaker 1: How did he defeat the fabulously wealthy King Croesus of Lydia in 547 BC?
Speaker 1: How did he breach the impregnable gates of Babylon in 539 BC?
Speaker 1: How did he create at that time what was the largest empire the world had ever seen, that stretched from India to Turkey?
Speaker 1: It could only happen by the strong arm of the Lord, who was able to make the weak and the feeble strong.
Speaker 1: Cyrus's victories from Turkey to India were not his own.
Speaker 1: He didn't stumble or strategize himself into victory.
Speaker 1: He was appointed for it.
Speaker 1: This is the Lord's doing and, step by step, the Lord's hand was on this little toddler directing his way to fulfill his purposes.
Speaker 1: This pagan idolater was guided by the God who created all things, and he would succeed because the Lord was going to use him to display that he was the master of history and the redeemer of his people.
Speaker 1: Verses 6 and 7 tell us exactly why this happens, so that all may know, from the rising of the sun to its setting, that there's no one but me.
Speaker 1: I am the Lord, and there is no other.
Speaker 1: I form light and create darkness.
Speaker 1: I make success and create darkness.
Speaker 1: I make success and create disaster.
Speaker 1: I am the Lord who does all these things.
Speaker 1: God is acting in history.
Speaker 1: God has his purposes that are unfolding and he is able to use anyone for that purpose.
Speaker 1: Cyrus is just a case study, but let's see why he does this.
Speaker 1: Verses 8 to 13.
Speaker 1: The God who is the faithful creator, the God who is the destroyer of false powers and empty promises, is the God who is the sovereign one who raises up Cyrus, who now is the God who is going to restore and reign.
Speaker 1: In verse 8, we see God celebrating his redemptive plan.
Speaker 1: Heavens sprinkle from above.
Speaker 1: Let the sky shower righteousness.
Speaker 1: Let the earth open up so that salvation will sprout and righteousness will spring up with it.
Speaker 1: I, the Lord, have created it.
Speaker 1: And here we get this beautiful, poetic vision of spiritual renewal, a world where righteousness rains down from the skies and salvation springs up from the earth, flourishing, full, vibrant, green, luscious, pleasant.
Speaker 1: And God is saying that his purposes are moving that direction, that his purposes are commanding the heavens and opening up the earth, and that righteousness and salvation are going to flourish in this created world.
Speaker 1: This is not just poetic flourishing.
Speaker 1: This is prophetic statements, an invitation to God's redemptive purposes that are going to be full of goodness, to God's redemptive purposes that are going to be full of goodness.
Speaker 1: It envisions a world where righteousness and salvation flourish together.
Speaker 1: It's a reversal of the drought, it is a foretaste of messianic hope, and this echoes the original design of creation in Genesis, chapter 1, where God made the mist to fall on the ground and the ground to respond with a flourishing garden.
Speaker 1: Here is a declaration that there will be a new heavens filled with righteousness and a new earth filled with salvation, and it's going to emerge partly through what God's going to do with Cyrus.
Speaker 1: Now, lest anybody who heard these words think that they were too marvelous to believe, too fanciful to be true.
Speaker 1: God now rebukes human arrogance Verses 9 and 10.
Speaker 1: Woe to the one who argues with his maker.
Speaker 1: One clay pot among many.
Speaker 1: Does clay say to the one informing it what are you making?
Speaker 1: Or does your work say he has no hands?
Speaker 1: Woe to the one who says to his father what are you fathering?
Speaker 1: Or to his mother, what are you giving birth to?
Speaker 1: Hmm, you see, the question of God using a man like Cyrus was not acceptable to the Jewish people, even though they didn't know that man yet.
Speaker 1: Just the concept of somebody named after a pagan God, who would be called his shepherd and his Messiah.
Speaker 1: How dare he, how dare he use a pagan king to deliver his righteous people?
Speaker 1: And so the Lord rebukes the people for their unbelief, because it was indeed too marvelous to believe.
Speaker 1: How dare they offer advice to the maker?
Speaker 1: Lest we look narrowly upon the Jewish people, paul quotes this verse Isaiah 45, 9, in the book of Romans, in chapter 9.
Speaker 1: Because this is a particular temptation, not just in the Jewish people, but every single one of us.
Speaker 1: Are you really telling me that Jesus is the only way to be saved?
Speaker 1: Are you actually even inviting me to understand that this world was created by God's purpose, design and act.
Speaker 1: Are you trying to tell me that he's not going to deliver me by seeing that I'm actually a good person?
Speaker 1: Are you trying to say that he won't just overlook my faults and let me in, Because well, are we really going to speak to God and tell him his way needs to be the way we want it to be?
Speaker 1: We really going to speak to God and tell him his way needs to be the way we want it to be?
Speaker 1: Job was confronted directly with that question.
Speaker 1: The Lord spoke to him in Job 40.
Speaker 1: Will the one who contends with the Almighty correct him?
Speaker 1: Let him argue.
Speaker 1: Let him argue with God and give his answer.
Speaker 1: And Job learned a lesson by that point in time.
Speaker 1: He still needed to learn it better, but he started off right and he said I am insignificant.
Speaker 1: How can I answer you insignificant?
Speaker 1: How can I answer you?
Speaker 1: I place my hand over my mouth.
Speaker 1: I've spoken once and I'm not going to reply twice, but I will not now add anything.
Speaker 1: And then God spoke to him again and said this well, get ready to answer me like a man, and when I question you, you will inform me, I'm sure.
Speaker 1: Would you really challenge my justice.
Speaker 1: Would you declare me guilty to justify yourself?
Speaker 1: Do you have an arm like God's?
Speaker 1: Can you thunder with a voice like his?
Speaker 1: Can you adorn yourself with majesty and splendor and clothe yourself with honor and glory?
Speaker 1: Can you pour out your raging anger and look upon every proud person and humiliate him?
Speaker 1: Can you?
Speaker 1: Can you trample the wicked where they stand?
Speaker 1: Can you hide them in the dust and imprison them in the grave?
Speaker 1: No, we can't.
Speaker 1: You see, to quarrel with the creators, to forget who we are are.
Speaker 1: We're just creatures, and we're pretty weak ones at that.
Speaker 1: We're clay, not the craftsman.
Speaker 1: And god is telling us here about how he's going to orchestrate history, and he's going to do it without asking our advice on how it should be done.
Speaker 1: And he's going to redeem his people, israel, and he's going to do it in a way that is completely contrary to their expectations.
Speaker 1: You see, god's methods may confound us, but they're never mistaken.
Speaker 1: And he tells the people here to trust him.
Speaker 1: To trust him because he is going to make it as if righteousness reigned and salvation flourished from the ground, and he's going to do it in a very peculiar way.
Speaker 1: And so we're invited to trust, not to criticize, and this is exactly what verses 11 and 12 do.
Speaker 1: This is what the Lord, the Holy One of Israel and its maker, says Ask me what is to happen to my sons and instruct me about the work of my hands.
Speaker 1: I made the earth and created humans on it.
Speaker 1: It was my hands that stretched out the heavens and I command everything in them.
Speaker 1: Yes, god's ways are great and right and wonderfully intimate and redemptive.
Speaker 1: And yes, we are not to even open our mouth in challenge, but we can certainly inquire with a trusting heart.
Speaker 1: How is that going to happen?
Speaker 1: And so he doesn't shut down sincere inquiry.
Speaker 1: He actually invites it because it shows a sense of wonder and trust and dependence that God knows all things and can do all things well.
Speaker 1: And so, in verse 13, he ends the flourish of this section by once again speaking about Cyrus.
Speaker 1: I have stirred him up in righteousness and will level all the roads for him.
Speaker 1: He will rebuild my city and set my exiles free, not for a price or a bribe, says the Lord of armies.
Speaker 1: People would read the Bible in Ezra, chapter 1, and they would say that it was complete, utter false and foolish statements, that there never has been and never would be a king who would act in the way that Ezra chapter 1 speaks about.
Speaker 1: And critics of the scriptures would look at Ezra chapter 1 and laugh and mock it to scorn and say how dare they posit this fabrication about some pagan king who would actually let people go and allow them to carry the implements of their worship back to their homeland and even to set up temples of worship where they returned to?
Speaker 1: And so they would read Ezra chapter 1 and they would laugh, as it says in the first year of King Cyrus of Persia, in order to fulfill the word of the Lord spoken through Jeremiah, the Lord roused the spirit of King Cyrus to issue a proclamation throughout his kingdom and to put it in writing.
Speaker 1: This is what King Cyrus of Persia says the Lord, the God of the heavens, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth and has appointed me to build him a house at Jerusalem and Judah and any of his peoples among you.
Speaker 1: May his God be with him and may he go to Jerusalem and Judah and build the house of the Lord, the God of Israel, the God who is in Jerusalem.
Speaker 1: Kings in those days made trophies out of the gods, of their captors, of their captives.
Speaker 1: They would collect the idols and they would collect the instruments of worship and they would stick them into particular places and they would say our God has conquered their gods.
Speaker 1: They are now our toys.
Speaker 1: And this is why, when you read in the book of Daniel Belshazzar grabbing the instruments of worship and using them in the middle of his feast of debauchery, why?
Speaker 1: Because it was a way of showing that he reigned over every other person and their gods, never, never, would there ever be someone who would come and do this.
Speaker 1: Let the people go.
Speaker 1: Let the people go with their worship instruments to return to their homeland and to rebuild their temple and to establish their worship once again.
Speaker 1: This had never been known.
Speaker 1: And so they laughed and they mocked and they scorned.
Speaker 1: And in 1879, archaeologists digging around in the rubble of Babylon found a cylinder.
Speaker 1: And it wasn't until 1912 that that cylinder was translated.
Speaker 1: And when they translated it, they read these exact words that Cyrus was letting people go.
Speaker 1: But he didn't just let them go.
Speaker 1: Let me go back to Ezra, chapter one.
Speaker 1: Any of his people among you may his God be with him and may he go to Jerusalem and Judah and build the house of the Lord, the God of Israel, the God who is in Jerusalem.
Speaker 1: Let every survivor, wherever he resides, be assisted by the men of that region.
Speaker 1: And so the family heads of Judah and Benjamin, along with the priest and Levites, everyone whose spirit God had roused, prepared to go up and rebuild the Lord's house in Jerusalem, and all of their neighbors supported them with silver articles, gold goods, livestock and values.
Speaker 1: In addition to all that was given as a freewill offering, king Cyrus also brought out the articles of the Lord's house that Nebuchadnezzar had taken from Jerusalem and had placed in the house of his gods.
Speaker 1: King Cyrus of Persia had them brought out under the supervision of Mithradoth, the treasurer, who counted them out to Shishbazar, the prince of Judah, and the people returned.
Speaker 1: What did God say 150 years before?
Speaker 1: That?
Speaker 1: I've stirred him up in righteousness and will level all the roads for him.
Speaker 1: He will rebuild my city and set my exiles free, not for a price or for a bribe, says the Lord of armies.
Speaker 1: Down to the very smallest detail, cyrus actually took money out of his own treasury, and he called for money to be taken out of the pockets of his people and given to the people of Israel so that they could go return and worship again, again.
Speaker 1: This is a picture of grace-driven redemption.
Speaker 1: This is not about ancient Near East politics so much as it is about a God who walks through human history and commands its every step.
Speaker 1: And we just walked through a passage of scripture that began with devastation on the horizon and yet spoke about a future worth believing in.
Speaker 1: That restoration was in view, even though judgment was coming.
Speaker 1: And he wants to remind the people that his covenant love is still unshaken, despite the exile that's about to occur, that his sovereign power is precise and that his redemptive plan is personal.
Speaker 1: And so he named Cyrus before he's born.
Speaker 1: He promises, before he's even raised up, that he would rebuild out of the destruction, because he's a God who guides history like a father guides a little child.
Speaker 1: Now, if God can do that, what can he do with you?
Speaker 1: What can he do in your life?
Speaker 1: What can he do that you can't see right at the moment?
Speaker 1: He knows your story too.
Speaker 1: He knows your pains and your hurts and your heartaches.
Speaker 1: He knows the barriers, he knows the obstacles that are in front.
Speaker 1: Heartaches, he knows the barriers, he knows the obstacles that are in front of you.
Speaker 1: He knows them.
Speaker 1: They're not too powerful for him, because this is not just about ancient empires, is it?
Speaker 1: It's about a God who's putting himself on display, who still speaks, who still redeems and who still reigns.
Speaker 1: Churchill, yes, he was able to rouse England, to tell them that there was a future worth fighting for.
Speaker 1: But God here is speaking to sinners, not just a nation.
Speaker 1: He's speaking to sinful people and saying there's a future worth believing in, because Cyrus, yes, was a servant, he was a shepherd, he was the anointed one.
Speaker 1: But all of it was a foreshadowing, yes, one in time and space and history, but a shadow of a far better deliverer.
Speaker 1: When the Lord calls Cyrus his shepherd in chapter 44 and verse 28, he is a picture of the Jesus who is coming, who says I am the good shepherd.
Speaker 1: And when the Lord indicates that Cyrus is his anointed, his Messiah, his Christ, it was the point to Jesus who was the.
Speaker 1: Cyrus is his anointed, his Messiah, his Christ.
Speaker 1: It was the point to Jesus who was the Christ, the anointed one.
Speaker 1: Cyrus, who would be raised up to deliver these captives in Babylon and set them free, is only picturing of Jesus, who is a greater redeemer, who's going to break the chains of sin and death and is going to set people free, into an eternal freedom.
Speaker 1: And when he prophesies of Cyrus commanding the rebuilding of a temple in Jerusalem, jesus said destroy this temple in three days I will raise it up again, the greater temple.
Speaker 1: And when Cyrus is called in righteousness in chapter 45, we find out that Jesus Christ is our righteousness in 1 Corinthians, chapter 1.
Speaker 1: And when he predicts stunning victories of Cyrus in chapter 45, verses 1 to 7, he's only picturing that Christ who will be the victor over all things seen and unseen.
Speaker 1: And the reason why Cyrus doesn't seem good enough to the people of Judah is because he isn't good enough, because there's one who is the God and Savior of the people.
Speaker 1: He is the Messiah, and the people will be saved by the Lord.
Speaker 1: And it isn't just going to be a man whose hand the Lord directs, it's actually going to be the right hand of God himself who is going to come.
Speaker 1: You see, this God who forms us, this God who declares these things about history, is the one who also came to redeem us, and so his plans are not extinguished by our ruin and his redemption is not thwarted by our rebellion.
Speaker 1: His rescue, his ability to redeem and to transform has not yet and will never fail, and it will not fail you if you recognize that there's a future worth believing in in Jesus Christ alone.
Speaker 1: So don't shake your fist at him.
Speaker 1: Don't tell him it's too fanciful to believe.
Speaker 1: Don't conjure up some idea that you think is far better than his plan of redemption for humanity.
Speaker 1: Don't try to water it down by saying well, he'll just overlook everybody's sins, no matter who they are.
Speaker 1: There is one man given among men under heaven whereby we must be saved, just one.
Speaker 1: This is his plan, his way, and, yes, it may seem as puzzling as Cyrus being called to be a shepherd and a Messiah, because there's only one shepherd and Messiah Jesus Christ, the Lord.
Speaker 1: Trust him, you can.
Speaker 1: He holds everything in his hands, including you.
Speaker 1: Let's pray, father.
Speaker 1: We thank you for the word of God, we thank you for such wondrous truths that are contained herein that can grant us not only comfort but confidence to our soul that you alone are the only one, that you spoke the world and the heavens into being and you command their every movement, and that you direct the steps of history so that, in the fullness of time, christ would come, and that he would come in order to redeem and to save.
Speaker 1: And, father, I pray for any of us here in this room this morning, or any of us who might be listening now or later to the word of God and Father, you and your glorious redemptive purposes might bring them to a saving knowledge through Jesus Christ.
Speaker 1: We pray our heavenly for those of us who do know you that we would see this passage and recognize that we have a future worth believing in and that the troubles of this world are going to be passing and fleeting and are not worthy to be compared to that glory that will be revealed, and, lord, may all of it be to your praise.
Speaker 1: We ask in Christ's name, amen.