Isaiah 45:6-25, 46
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So tonight we pick up in Isaiah 45. Last week we learned about Cyrus the Great aka Cyrus the Persian. A man God specifically called by name who He ultimately used to defeat the Babylonians and release the Jews to go back to Jerusalem to rebuild the temple. He even helped finance the project. Just as God stated 200 years earlier by Isaiah the prophet.
But before we go to Isaiah I thought it good to remind you and me that even though everything feels out of control, things have changed a lot in a very short amount of time, the fact is that God is still on the thrown, He has a plan and if you have trusted Christ as your Lord and Savior you and me are in His plan.
God has laid out His plan for us to see.
28 And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose. 29 For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren. 30 Moreover whom He predestined, these He also called; whom He called, these He also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified.
God’s plan is for you and me to be conformed into the image of His Son, Jesus! ..and ultimately be Glorified with Him.
Alright lets go to Isaiah 45 for context I will begin at verse 1
1 “Thus says the LORD to His anointed,
To Cyrus, whose right hand I have held—
To subdue nations before him
And loose the armor of kings,
To open before him the double doors,
So that the gates will not be shut:
2 ‘I will go before you
And make the crooked places[fn] straight;
I will break in pieces the gates of bronze
And cut the bars of iron.
3 I will give you the treasures of darkness
And hidden riches of secret places,
That you may know that I, the LORD,
Who call you by your name,
Am the God of Israel.
4 For Jacob My servant’s sake,
And Israel My elect,
I have even called you by your name;
I have named you, though you have not known Me.
5 I am the LORD, and there is no other;
There is no God besides Me.
I will gird you, though you have not known Me,
Verses 1 -5 were specific to Cyrus. He didn’t know God yet God still used him for His purposes! Indeed God is able to get His will done.
1 The king’s heart is in the hand of the Lord,
Like the rivers of water; He turns it wherever He wishes.
Now the LORD Yahweh tells us more about Himself.
6 That they may know from the rising of the sun to its setting
That there is none besides Me.
I am the LORD, and there is no other;
7 I form the light and create darkness,
I make peace and create calamity;
I, the LORD, do all these things.’
These verse are particularly interesting to me. Here we see the 3 words used in the Creation process. create, form, and make. Isaiah has some very provocative things to say about the Creation topic in verse 18.
But here in verse 7, He creates the darkness. We are taught that darkness is just an absence of light; but that’s not all it is according to advanced science. It has physical properties.
Notice also, God makes peace and calamity. The Hebrew word for calamity is rah. It is used to mean - evil (442x), wickedness (59x), wicked (25x), mischief (21x), hurt (20x), bad (13x), trouble (10x), sore (9x), affliction (6x), ill (5x), adversity (4x), ill favoured (3x), harm (3x), naught (3x), noisome (2x), grievous (2x), sad (2x), miscellaneous (34x).
So when you hear someone say that God has brought this CV and the Mainstream media goes crazy mocking them don’t be so quick to agree with the mockers. It’s not for us to know exactly what God is doing or allowing but this verse certainly says God does such things for His own purposes.
This message would also have direct meaning to Cyrus. According to one commentator,
Isaiah’s point is that there are not two gods or forces in heaven, one good and one bad, as in a dualistic “yin and yang” sense. “Cyrus was a Persian, and Persian had a dualistic concept of God and the world. Their good god they called Ahura-mazda and the evil god Angra-mainya. The former had created the light, the second the darkness.” (Bultema)
ii. But God has no opposite. Satan is not and has never been God’s opposite. There is one God. He is not the author of evil; evil is never “original,” but always a perversion of an existing good. Yet God is the allower of evil, and He uses it to accomplish His eternal purpose of bringing together all things in Jesus (Ephesians 3:8-11 and 1:9-10). If God could further His eternal purpose by allowing His Son to die a wicked, unjust death on a cross, then He knows how to use what He allows for His eternal purpose. (Guzik)
8 “Rain down, you heavens, from above,
And let the skies pour down righteousness;
Let the earth open, let them bring forth salvation,
And let righteousness spring up together.
I, the LORD, have created it.
Note: that salvation and righteousness spring up together. We should not expect that an unsaved world will produce righteousness it won’t. That’s why all creation “groans” as Paul puts it, waiting the glorious return of Jesus Christ to rule and reign in righteousness.
9 “Woe to him who strives with his Maker!
Let the potsherd strive with the potsherds of the earth!
Shall the clay say to him who forms it, ‘What are you making?’
Or shall your handiwork say, ‘He has no hands’?
10 Woe to him who says to his father, ‘What are you begetting?’
Or to the woman, ‘What have you brought forth?’ ”
This is a common theme through out the scriptures. Paul writes in
14 What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God? Certainly not! 15 For He says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whomever I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whomever I will have compassion.” 16 So then it is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy. 17 For the Scripture says to the Pharaoh, “For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I may show My power in you, and that My name may be declared in all the earth.” 18 Therefore He has mercy on whom He wills, and whom He wills He hardens.
19 You will say to me then, “Why does He still find fault? For who has resisted His will?” 20 But indeed, O man, who are you to reply against God? Will the thing formed say to him who formed it, “Why have you made me like this?” 21 Does not the potter have power over the clay, from the same lump to make one vessel for honor and another for dishonor?
Its is believed that the Jews murmured about God’s decree that a heathen would deliver them, and that these words are a rebuke.”
When it comes to prophetic matters, things that have not yet happened, all we can do is know that they will come to pass. As to the timing and manner Gods asks us to trust Him. The moral here is to hold your ideas, of how it will all go down in the end, loosely.
11 Thus says the LORD,
The Holy One of Israel, and his Maker:
“Ask Me of things to come concerning My sons;
And concerning the work of My hands, you command Me.
12 I have made the earth,
And created man on it.
I—My hands—stretched out the heavens,
And all their host I have commanded.
Regardless of what any person might say or believe, the fact is that all creation was originated by God. Just because one sincerely believes a lie does not make it true.
Now speaking of Cyrus;
13 I have raised him up in righteousness,
And I will direct all his ways;
He shall build My city
And let My exiles go free,
Not for price nor reward,”
Says the LORD of hosts.
This is noteworthy to me. It did not materially benefit Cyrus to release the Jews, he got no reward or price. It was God who moved him to do it.
He continues;
14 Thus says the LORD:
“The labor of Egypt and merchandise of Cush
And of the Sabeans, men of stature,
Shall come over to you, and they shall be yours;
They shall walk behind you,
They shall come over in chains;
And they shall bow down to you.
They will make supplication to you, saying, ‘Surely God is in you,
And there is no other;
There is no other God.’ ”
15 Truly You are God, who hide Yourself,
Hides Himself during the times of the Gentiles..
O God of Israel, the Savior!
16 They shall be ashamed
And also disgraced, all of them;
They shall go in confusion together,
Who are makers of idols.
17 But Israel shall be saved by the LORD
With an everlasting salvation;
You shall not be ashamed or disgraced
Forever and ever.
In the end Israel is God’s chosen people and He will soon begin the process of awakening them to the truth.
Now we get to the provocative verse 18.
18 For thus says the LORD,
Who created the heavens,
Who is God,
Who formed the earth and made it,
Who has established it,
Who did not create it in vain,
Who formed it to be inhabited:
“I am the LORD, and there is no other.
This verse again uses the 3 words for Creation. Create is “bara” means to create from nothing. Forms is “yatsar” and means to form fashion or frame, as in the potter forms the clay. Made is “asah.” Meaning to do, work, make, produce.
The interesting part of the verse is;
Who did not create it in vain,
Who formed it to be inhabited:
When you compare this verse to Genesis 1:2 there seems to be a contradiction.
2 The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.
Some scholars argue that the “was” in Gen 1:2 should translated “became” and the word is translated that way many more times in the Torah. If this is correct then this is where the “gap theory” comes from.
As the name implies, it reveals a gap between verse 1 and verse 2. If that is the case they conjecture that it was in this “gap” that Lucifer fell with the third of the angelic host.
It gets more interesting when you look at Eze 28. We studied this previously with its “sister” in Is 14.
13 You were in Eden, the garden of God;
Every precious stone was your covering:
The sardius, topaz, and diamond,
Beryl, onyx, and jasper,
Sapphire, turquoise, and emerald with gold.
The workmanship of your timbrels and pipes
Was prepared for you on the day you were created.
Now, what the Gap Theory does not do is make a way for Millions and Billions of years for evolution, the dinosaurs and such. Although that is usually how people apply the theory.
The reason is that prior to Adam’s sin there was no death.
12 Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned—13 (For until the law sin was in the world, but sin is not imputed when there is no law. 14 Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those who had not sinned according to the likeness of the transgression of Adam, who is a type of Him who was to come. 15 But the free gift is not like the offense. For if by the one man’s offense many died, much more the grace of God and the gift by the grace of the one Man, Jesus Christ, abounded to many.
We move on;
19 I have not spoken in secret,
In a dark place of the earth;
I did not say to the seed of Jacob,
‘Seek Me in vain’;
I, the LORD, speak righteousness,
I declare things that are right.
This verse reminds me of Jesus saying, In My Fathers house are many dwelling places, If it were not so I would not have told you.
This is no game, God is saying, these things are true.
20 “Assemble yourselves and come;
Draw near together,
You who have escaped from the nations.
They have no knowledge,
Who carry the wood of their carved image,
And pray to a god that cannot save.
21 Tell and bring forth your case;
Yes, let them take counsel together.
Who has declared this from ancient time?
Who has told it from that time?
Have not I, the LORD?
And there is no other God besides Me,
A just God and a Savior;
There is none besides Me.
God 100% correct 100% of the time.
22 “Look to Me, and be saved,
All you ends of the earth!
For I am God, and there is no other.
Here we are reminded that our Salvation is dependent upon our looking too God. Think of the brazen serpent that Moses raised up in the wilderness. The only healing from the snake bites was to look up to the Brass Serpent on the pole. In the same way Jesus told us
32 And I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all peoples to Myself.”
Paul writes
13 For “whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.”
23 I have sworn by Myself;
The word has gone out of My mouth in righteousness,
And shall not return,
That to Me every knee shall bow,
Every tongue shall take an oath.
Sound familiar? Paul quotes this in
10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth,
24 He shall say,
‘Surely in the LORD I have righteousness and strength.
To Him men shall come,
And all shall be ashamed
Who are incensed against Him.
25 In the LORD all the descendants of Israel
Shall be justified, and shall glory.’ ”
Let’s move on to Chapter 46
1 Bel bows down, Nebo stoops;
Their idols were on the beasts and on the cattle.
Your carriages were heavily loaded,
A burden to the weary beast.
2 They stoop, they bow down together;
They could not deliver the burden,
But have themselves gone into captivity.
Bel bows down, Nebo stoops: Bel and Nebo were names of two false gods the idol-worshipping nations served. It is as if now God gets personal, “naming names” when it comes to idols; and now these false gods are brought low.
The names of the pagan gods Bel and Nebo are familiar to us in the names Belshazzar and Nebuchadnezzar. Nebo means Lofty one and Bel means Master.
3 “Listen to Me, O house of Jacob,
And all the remnant of the house of Israel,
Who have been upheld by Me from birth,
Who have been carried from the womb:
4 Even to your old age, I am He,
And even to gray hairs I will carry you!
I have made, and I will bear;
Even I will carry, and will deliver you.
Yahweh here pleading with His people.
5 “To whom will you liken Me, and make Me equal
And compare Me, that we should be alike?
6 They lavish gold out of the bag,
And weigh silver on the scales;
They hire a goldsmith, and he makes it a god;
They prostrate themselves, yes, they worship.
7 They bear it on the shoulder, they carry it
And set it in its place, and it stands;
From its place it shall not move.
Though one cries out to it, yet it cannot answer
Nor save him out of his trouble.
We must be careful of who we worship. The bible tells us that we will become like the God we worship. If you worship money you become like money, materialistic and cold. If you worship sports you will throw away the people who are no longer useful to you. Be sure you are worshipping Jesus, you want to be like Him.
8 “Remember this, and show yourselves men;
Recall to mind, O you transgressors.
We can save ourselves lots of trouble if we would just remember!
9 Remember the former things of old,
For I am God, and there is no other;
I am God, and there is none like Me,
10 Declaring the end from the beginning,
And from ancient times things that are not yet done,
Saying, ‘My counsel shall stand,
And I will do all My pleasure,’
If you are in Christ it’s because that was His pleasure to bring you in. PTL!
13 And He went up on the mountain and called to Him those He Himself wanted. And they came to Him.
11 Calling a bird of prey from the east,
The man who executes My counsel, from a far country.
Indeed I have spoken it;
I will also bring it to pass.
I have purposed it;
I will also do it.
12 “Listen to Me, you stubborn-hearted,
Who are far from righteousness:
13 I bring My righteousness near, it shall not be far off;
My salvation shall not linger.
And I will place salvation in Zion,
For Israel My glory.
Don’t be stubborn-hearted today. If you are in sin confess it and return to Him, if you don’t know Him; call out to Him, because His salvation will not linger. Call on the Lord while He may be found.