Isaiah 45
The name Cyrus has already been mentioned by Isaiah in earlier chapters. This is an amazing detail referring to Cyrus the Great of Persia who reigned in the sixth century BC. Remember that Isaiah ministered in the eighth and seventh centuries BC, long before the birth of this Cyrus, who has such a prominent place in these chapters of prophecy and in the deliverance of many peoples including the Jews. Cyrus would defeat the Babylonians, and would eventually issue the decree authorizing the return of many Jews to their homeland authorizing the rebuilding of the temple in
This Cyrus is called here the Lord’s anointed. That is another way of saying “Messiah” or “Christ.” The anointed one is chosen by God for a special task of deliverance and salvation for the people of God. Here the title is given to a non-Jewish emperor. God is able to use a wide variety of resources for the accomplishment of His well. Cyrus is one of those resources. God leads the way for Cyrus. He brings him to power, and removes obstacles that stand in his way. It is God who is able to call such a man by name, and to do so for his people
Cyrus is an amazing figure in human history, but the key for us is God, as the prophet so clearly states. God rules in all the affairs of men. We think that great men do great things through their great plans, and I suppose that they do. But have we forgotten that it is the God of Israel who is the Lord of all. There is no other. He makes Cyrus to be the man that He is. He can use such a man in all his greatness, even if that man will never acknowledge him as the only Lord. People all over the world should learn from this. The God who creates light and darkness also makes well-being and calamity. He does all these things.
Who is this God? Know that He loves righteousness, and He will bring about the fruit of righteousness as His wonderful plans unfold. Seemingly unbeatable foes can be easily defeated by Him, and the strongest nation’s plans that seem unstoppable can be brought to an end in a moment. He is in charge of the earth and the stars. He rules men and angels. He knows and brings about things that are to come. This God sets Cyrus in place at just the right time to complete His holy purposes through events that may seem most unlikely to the most educated human observers.
His agent of change need not be one of His covenant people. He can make a Cyrus to win at every turn, but it is God who has done, a fact that will one day be very evident.
Though the Lord’s ways are most complex, and though His secret will cannot be guessed or fully understood by men, yet this is not because He is being entirely secretive in all of His works. He has shown to us the way of righteousness and truth in His Son. He has made the meaning of His moral law clear for all who would have a heart to follow Him. We cannot claim that every command is a matter of such profound mystery that no one could ever follow His law. The plain fact is that the man Jesus Christ, the real Messiah, was able to hear and obey the Law without ever stumbling into unbelief or disobedience.
As God is savior, He has also provided a Messiah-Savior who is far above Cyrus. Cyrus the Great performed the will of His Creator without apparently having a very complete understanding of the Lawgiver behind all of the providential events in which He was a central figure. By contrast, Jesus played His part as the Son of God as one who willingly became man in order to accomplish a mission with which he was exhaustively aware. Christ understood your sin, He knew the penalty that the Law demanded and willingly accepted the punishment for you. As His Father is God and Savior, so the Son of God is God and Savior, and was completely aware of the great things that He was accomplishing through His life and death. He was not vague about the glory of the God of heaven and earth. He understood His place as the anointed one in the plan of redemption and executed the charge committed to Him flawlessly.
It is now incumbent upon all of us to surrender before the majesty of this King, whose glory was veiled in humble flesh, and who has redeemed not only our souls, but even our bodies. We must turn to Him and be saved. Many powerful people, though mightily used by God, may entirely mistake the Lord Jesus Christ as too simple, or too poor and powerless to be seriously considered to be the King that He is. But we know better than them on this point, because we have come to know the truth that Jesus is Lord.
posted by Pastor Magee @ 7:00 AM
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