The Turning of the Kings Heart- Part 1
Living as Exiles for our Faithful God • Sermon • Submitted
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In the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the climax of the movie saga entitled the Avengers was the movie Endgame where these fictional superheroes were trying to undo the global destruction of the movie’s main villain, Thanos. The way to undo this terror was to travel back in time and remove piece by piece the elements of power that allowed him the opportunity to destroy. In one scene, as the characters grapple with this new found time traveling ability, one character jokingly suggests that they could just travel back in time to when the the villain Thanos was a child and take him out.” While the suggestion itself invites disgust at even the mention of killing children, it raises a great theological question that many people grapple with in history when considering the existence of God,
Why does God allow evil people to be born? Obviously we do not ask this about Thanos, but we might ask it regarding evil people like Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Mao Zedong, Genghis Khan, etc. These evil men caused destruction and terror across the world, bringing great death with them. Where was God in all of this?
A question like this is reasonable and logical when considering the existence of God and yet sadly, many Christians are not equipped to answer such a question from a friend or foe. The good news is that the Bible does seem to give a satisfactory explanation of the great problem of evil in light of the reality of the existence of the God of the Bible and I hope to help equip you in afternoon in that direction.
Why? Not only is this an important topic to consider but it directly relates to the book of Ezra that we began to study last week. During my time today, I want to reasonably explain that God’s complete sovereignty is the underlying principle which explains how the existence of evil in the world is used by God to brings about his good purposes and His supreme glory.
What is God’s sovereignty?
To answer that question let’s look to God’s words as He reveals himself to be.
Exodus 3:14 (ESV)
14 God said to Moses, “I am who I am.” And he said, “Say this to the people of Israel: ‘I am has sent me to you.’ ”
Starting with the name of God that was given to Moses on Mt Sinai. Moses asked God from the presence of the burning bush, who he is. God replied, I AM WHO I AM. From this declaration of God, we can deduce two major key attributes about God:
Self-existent and eternal
God does not exist by any means other than himself. He needs nothing to aid in his existence which was symbolized in the burning bush. The very elements of that fire were created out of nothing and they maintained the properties of fire, not with the aid of the bush itself, dry wood, air, etc but instead were maintained outside of the properties of nature. We could should actually not call that they “burning bush” because as we understand fire from the scientific world, that is not what was happening to that bush.
Acts 17:24–25 (ESV)
24 The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, 25 nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything.
Creatures like ourselves need food, air, heat, shelter, relationships, gravity, cheeseburgers. God needs nothing from us. God exists in and of himself, and therefore is not limited by anything and cannot be bound by anything. This means that the name of God also communicates that time does not grasp a hold of God but God instead holds time in his hand. He does not all himself, I WILL BE or I WAS but simply I AM.
Psalm 90:2 (ESV)2 Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God.
Sovereign and Independent
Secondly, the name of God communicates his dominance and rule over all that exists as creator and king of all. He says again, I AM WHO I AM and not I AM WHO MY CREATION NEEDS ME TO BE or WHO I AM CONSTRAINED TO BE BY OUTSIDE FORCES. He is ruler supreme because he rules over that which he created for His own glory.
Isaiah 46:9–11 (ESV)
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 not yet done, saying, ‘My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose,’ 11 calling a bird of prey from the east, the man of my counsel from a far country. I have spoken, and I will bring it to pass; I have purposed, and I will do it.
In this passage from Isaiah 46, we see that God is the supreme Lord who stands outside of time and yet makes his declaration of time and his sovereign will effective in our world. In other words, God’s sovereignty contains many aspects that we need to discuss so that we might understand God’s nature as He reveals himself to be and not how we might conjure up our ideas about him from thin air.
Theologian Joel Beeke writes,
God’s Sovereignty has many facets. It resides in his infinite divine nature, appears in his decreeing of all things, crystallizes in his election of those whom he will save by Christ’s grace and in his reprobation of them whom he will damn for their sins, and carries all things along by his works of providence, which are according to his will.
In order for us to grasp the book of Ezra, we must understand God’s sovereignty because it immediately is on display in his rule, authority, power, and work through all of his creation, even pagan kings. Consider with me some of the facets of God’s sovereignty that Joel Beeke mentioned.
God’s power:
We understand that as the Sovereign Lord, God is not limited by anything and therefore his power is unmatched by others and unlimited in accomplishing his purposes. Looking back to Isaiah 46,
‘My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose,’ 11 calling a bird of prey from the east, the man of my counsel from a far country. I have spoken, and I will bring it to pass; I have purposed, and I will do it.
Notice in this passage that whatever God sets out to accomplish, nothing can stand in his way. This is not merely self-determination like a ambitious young adult who is determined to achieve the goals they set out in life. This is a divine self-determination that literally cannot be stopped or hindered because his resources and his power are unlimited to accomplish all that He sets out to accomplish.
God’s authority:
Closely connected to God’s sovereign power, is God’s sovereign authority over all that exists in the world. As the one who made the world by his power, when he spoke everything into existence out of nothing, so he rules all that He created. Psalm 24 state that the “earth is the Lords and the fullness thereof for he has founded it upon the seas and established it upon the rivers.” What God had made and who God has me, he rules over without apology and need for some assistance in his rule. He did not created humanity to the wise counsel to the Almighty God because he has some wisdom to add to his unlimited knowledge and wisdom.
Psalm 115:1–3 (ESV)
1 Not to us, O Lord, not to us, but to your name give glory, for the sake of your steadfast love and your faithfulness! 2 Why should the nations say, “Where is their God?” 3 Our God is in the heavens; he does all that he pleases.
God’s Will:
Now we come to another aspect of God’s sovereignty, and that is his will. These are his purposes, his plans, the goals that he has set and will accomplish in this momentary existence of life which pales in comparison to God’s eternal existence. Looking back again at Isaiah 46:10
‘My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose,’
What is God’s counsel and what is God’s purpose? All that operates under the rule, power and authority of God is directed according to his will or his plan. By the prophet Isaiah, God states that what he determines to occur in this existence and into eternity, is not by accident, or by coincidence, but specifically and perfectly by his divine will. As finite humans, we cannot understand and see all of God’s will. We only have what He has revealed to us and therefore we operate on a limited knowledge while God’s knowledge is unlimited.
Deuteronomy 29:29 (ESV)29 “The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law.
Secondly, his will is not separated from his other attributes of love, goodness, mercy, grace, and holiness, to name a few. His purposes or his will flow out from his attributes and therefore are bathed in the personality of our divine creator. We could simply say that God’s will is a loving will, a holy will, a just will, a merciful will, and a gracious will. Theologicans smarter than me have wrestled through the centuries to understand the will of God revealed to us in his word. They simplified the complexity of it by classifying it into two categories:
God’s desires and God’s decrees. God’s Precepts and His promises. Again Joel Beeke writes,
“We express this distinction most accurately as that between God’s preceptive will and his decretive will. The first describes what God instructs us to do and the second what he has decreed to take place.
A helpful examples is found in 2 Peter 3:9 (ESV)
9 The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.
Now when considering this verse, we see that God is “not wishing” that any should perish but that all should reach repentance. Wishing is desire and God’s heart toward humanity is that none would rebel against him and perish in eternal damnation. But his eternal decree stands that he can “by no means clear the guilty” (Ex 34:7). Punishment will come to those who rebel against him and his enemies will perish because God has decreed it.
Ephesians 1:11 (ESV)11 In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will,
In this passage in Ephesians, in considering election, we would NOT interpret the counsel of his will as his desire or preceptive will. This is not something God is commanding or desiring of his people for election is never revealed as a responsibility of mankind but an act of God. Instead we would say that the salvation of the elect is based on the decree of God, established before the ages began, that will certainly come to pass without hindrance or hiccup.
As we consider the decree of God as a part of his holy will, then we understand that all that God decrees comes to pass although a sinful humanity does rebel against God’s desires. With the existence of sin that entered the world through Adam and Eve, we must ask the question asked at the beginning of this sermon, how does this help us understand the problem of evil.
If the decree of God always comes to pass, and nothing comes to pass outside of the power, authority and sovereignty of God, then logically we must deduce that sin entering the world was part of the decree of God. It was the decree of God to allow sin in and it was the decree of God to provide a way of escape. I know this pushes hard against our faith in God but this is the reality of God’s sovereignty. Certain aspects of that reality are more easily acceptable than others. For example, when the death of a loved one comes into your life, the reality of God’s sovereignty is hard for God brings death into the life of every person. God gives life and he take life away according to the perfect and holy will. He does not wish pain upon us as some malicious deity but his decree is all “all souls who sin will die.”
In the story of Job, God’s sovereignty is on display as he wills for Job to suffer, allowing the evil of Satan to be the vessel to show Job and the church the supreme power and glory of God as Job suffers earthly loss for a time. This was the decree of God for Job’s loss.
In the decree of God for evil to exist for a time in this life, God uses that by his power to bring about good. Specifically to our story of Cyrus, God brings about evil for the good of persons and the accomplishment of His glory.
Stuart read Isaiah 44-45 so turn back there with me.
Isaiah 44:24–45:13 (ESV)
24 Thus says the Lord, your Redeemer, who formed you from the womb: “I am the Lord, who made all things, who alone stretched out the heavens, who spread out the earth by myself, 25 who frustrates the signs of liars and makes fools of diviners, who turns wise men back and makes their knowledge foolish, 26 who confirms the word of his servant and fulfills the counsel of his messengers, who says of Jerusalem, ‘She shall be inhabited,’ and of the cities of Judah, ‘They shall be built, and I will raise up their ruins’; 27 who says to the deep, ‘Be dry; I will dry up your rivers’;
What is the decree of God in verse 26, Jerusalem shall be inhabited and rebuilt. It will come to pass. Again this is not a desire of God that he expects from men but one that he will make happen. How does he make it happen?
28 who says of Cyrus, ‘He is my shepherd, and he shall fulfill all my purpose’; saying of Jerusalem, ‘She shall be built,’ and of the temple, ‘Your foundation shall be laid.’ ” 1 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: 2 “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, 3 I will give you the treasures of darkness and the hoards in secret places,
God created Cyrus the Great and his pagan and godless reign was the decree of God in the same way that God allowed every other ruthless ruler to be born, to live, to kill and maim. Cyrus dominated the Babylonians, being responsible for the numerous deaths along that conquest. God calls Cyrus his “messiah” or “anointed” because God was going to use evil for good and God would empower Cyrus for good purposes. We cannot escape the raw and yet true reality that God allowed Cyrus to:
-subdue nations
-loose belts of kings (take their wealth)
-open doors (conquest)
-give treasures of darkness
An infinite sovereign God assigns evil men to rule and reign but he always has a supreme purpose, his purpose is not you and me, it himself. The ultimate purpose of his will carried out in this world is his supreme glory. Look in v 3,
that you may know that it is I, the Lord, the God of Israel, who call you by your name. 4 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. 5 I am the Lord, and there is no other, besides me there is no God; I equip you, though you do not know me, 6 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. 7 I form light and create darkness; I make well-being and create calamity; I am the Lord, who does all these things.
What we will see as we study the word of God is that his purposes are always good and Cyrus was created to know God, although Cyrus never loved God. He knew God with knowledge and he admired the God of Israel with respect but he did not know him with intimacy and faith. But in God’s sovereignty, he can use the most evil of circumstances to bring about his supreme glory.
Let us stop here and acknowledge the unlimited list of calamity, terror, abuse, and evil that not only exists in this world but is personal to each of us. We all suffer and we all face evil. This is the dividing line in the sand in our faith of a sovereign God, whether we will believe in the God who uses evil for the purpose of God’s glory. If you prefer to think of God who has no direct control over evil, who is arrested to the power of evil as a countering force against him that he battles with and loses battle after battle to, then you cannot believe in the God of the Bible who has reveled himself as ruling over all good and evil.
Let me encourage you to remember that if you love God, as he is revealed himself to be in the Scriptures, then he is FOR YOUR GOOD. His purpose in Cyrus was for Cyrus to know God by faith but also for the good of his people from Judah. Cyrus experienced the Lord’s temporary property in war and dominion so that Israel would return to Jerusalem, rebuild, resettle and ultimately, so that salvation may come through the eternal Messiah, Jesus Christ. V 6 notates that Cyrus was a means to an end that all the people of the earth would be blessed.
4 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. 5 I am the Lord, and there is no other, besides me there is no God; I equip you, though you do not know me, 6 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 assumes skeptics and naysayers to this doctrine. Paul knew this as well in Romans 9-11 about the doctrine of divine election so he borrows the upcoming verses from Isaiah 45 when mankind is faced with incompatible doctrines that don’t line up with their limited wisdom. Consider v 8,
8 “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.
NOTE: the shower from above is coming from heaven to earth and the rain coming down is salvation and righteousness. God is reminding the reader of his ultimate purposes for the evil at calamity at play.
9 “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’? 10 Woe to him who says to a father, ‘What are you begetting?’ or to a woman, ‘With what are you in labor?’ ” 11 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? 12 I made the earth and created man on it; it was my hands that stretched out the heavens, and I commanded all their host. 13 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.
In a rhetorical argument against the skeptic, God wisely tears down the argument of injustice that some find in the doctrine of God’s sovereignty. He does not explain how he specifically works both good and evil for his purposes, but he does reason that at the end of the day, as a finite created being that is formed by God and exist under God’s Lordship and care, you are not entitled to all the answers in the mind of God. You and I are the earthen pot that is shaped by the sovereign hands of God into whatever vessel that God chooses to be used how He chooses. You could be the fashioned to be a cup of the king or the water trough for a herd of nasty pigs.
I think verse 11 allows for real questions to be asked of God regarding these things. God invites the questions but he detests the rebellion or skepticism when our arrogance deduces that God owes us an answer. When we begin commanding God to operate a certain way then we dishonor the Lord of Lords.
Finally when we come to understand that God is in control over all things including evil, we naturally ask, then do my actions matter? This is the question of determinism.
If God’s will is always accomplished and he is specific about the life of Cyrus just as He is specific about the life of Nathan, then do I just sit back idly and allow God to work his purposes without any actions of my own? The answer is NO. In the wisdom and power of God, He works through the mankind’s actions to accomplish his purposes. In other words, there is a related doctrine of God’s providence that we will look at more carefully next week that helps explain how God operates his through good and evil secondary causes in order to bring about his perfect and good plan formed in eternity. MORE ON THIS NEXT WEEK!
His sovereign plan is most clearly seen in the person of Jesus Christ. Like I shared last week, God’s sovereign plan is fulfilled in Jesus, the Messiah coming into the world to save sinners from sin and death. His death on the cross and his resurrection, an evil in themselves, were necessary and purposed by God so that people can believe in His name and be saved. Peter saw this by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit and stated in Acts 2,
Acts 2:22–24 (ESV)
22 “Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs that God did through him in your midst, as you yourselves know— 23 this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men. 24 God raised him up, loosing the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it….36 Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.”
Jesus is the Sovereign Lord and he is fulfillment of Cyrus’ decree, Israel’s return, a resettling of Judah in the land, and a place called Bethlehem that would be the birthplace of the true King of Kings.
Pastoral word:
If all of these truths about God are upsetting or unsettling to you, let me encourage not to jump on the internet an digest a bunch of garbage from every opinion known to man. Instead, open your bible this week, buy a concordance and trace these Scriptures like a thread throughout the whole of the Bible to see if God’s sovereignty is as its has been explained. Talk with others your brothers and sisters in Christ and dialogue about these things more. These truths are hard but they are not intended to lead us to confusion. They are meant to lead us to worship.
Connor is about to come and lead us in “Before the throne of God Above.” That throne represents the sovereign Lord of the universe by which he live and exist below his power, authority and will.