Jump Start # 1026

Isaiah 45:1 “Thus says the Lord to Cyrus His anointed.”

  Cyrus—the Lord’s anointed? Cyrus– a foreign king? Cyrus—the one who defeated the Babylonians? Cyrus-His messiah?  This verse, these eight words, reveal three powerful principles about the Lord.

First, the background. Isaiah, along with Jeremiah and Daniel, were contemporaries who prophesied to Judah about the coming punishment from Babylon. It was ugly. The walls were destroyed. The Temple was ransacked and robbed. Many were killed. Several were taken captive and kidnapped to Babylon. For a long seventy years they remained under Babylon’s thumb until the Medes and Persians swept in and overthrew a sleeping giant. Cyrus, the Persian king, made a decree that allowed the captives held in Babylon to return home to Jerusalem. Thousands returned to their beloved homeland.

There is no indication that Cyrus was a believer in God. There is no indication that his heart turned to God.  Twice in this chapter God says, “Though you have not known Me” (4, 5). God used Cyrus. The word “anointed” is the word for messiah. Cyrus was not THE messiah, but a messiah. He was the one sent. He was the one who “saved” the people and rescued them.

Three lessons about God.

First, we fail terribly when we think we have figured God out. We haven’t. We can’t. He has revealed to us what He wants us to know. We have enough reason to believe Him, trust Him and love Him. But figured Him out? No. Too many writers have turned the relationship between God and His followers into a couple of buddies walking down to the fishing pond. They have made God one of us. They think, as so many believe, that they fully understand God. Wrong. He is too grand, holy, and beyond us for us to peg Him and know just what He will do. That shallow thinking misses the majestic ways of the Lord. No one in Isaiah’s day would have thought or even prayed for God to use Cyrus. In most minds, the only thing that changed was the name of the country in charge. Another foreign nation. Another language. Another law. Another ruler. But who would have known, that Cyrus would be the one to deliver them. God did.

Second, God doesn’t have to explain Himself to us. In our passage, God is using a pagan king to rescue His people. That’s not the first time He did that. God doesn’t always use His people. God doesn’t always do things the way we think He should. God doesn’t have to tell us what He is doing, nor explain His ways. We understand this when talking about Babylon, but when we talk about someone we love dying, or losing their job—then we scream, “Why, God.” Job learned that we are not in the position to question God. A parent doesn’t have to explain their ways to the child, nor does God have to explain His ways to us. It is by faith, that we trust and hold on to God. We must remember that God doesn’t work for us. We are His followers.

Third, the sovereignty of God means that He will accomplish His will. Period. He will use anyone and any condition to fulfill His purpose. God will not be thwarted, sidetracked, or defeated. He is the sovereign God. His rule is absolute. All authority has been given to Christ.

So God used a pagan Persian king to accomplish what He wanted. He did it then. There is no reason to think that He couldn’t do the same today. Doomsday folks will cry that America is on it’s last leg and our future is short. Some compare our times to the days of Sodom. Some think that they know what God’s got planned. I expect they will be surprised. Don’t try to guess God’s moves. Don’t try to figure God out. Don’t try to put God into a box. You’ll fail just about every time.

Things are not good. Morality seems to have gone out the window. But that’s the Hollywood set. They have always been going their own direction. There are many, many, many folks who have not bowed their knees to the filth of the world. There are many who every Sunday gather to praise the God of Heaven and Earth. There are many who every day are bowing their heads in prayer and every day opening God’s word to drink deeply the Holy message from Heaven. Every day folks are turning their hearts to God and leaving the brokenness of sin. Every day people are thinking right, doing right, and being right. What will God do? I can’t tell you that. When will Jesus come? I can’t tell you.

What I can tell you is what we ought to be doing. We, and that’s all of us, need to be stepping up our faith, becoming more passionate in our worship and telling others about Jesus. The more we did these things and the less we spent trying to guess God’s next move, the better off we’d be.

God is sovereign. Never forget that.

Roger