Ruler and Overruler (Part A)

God, again, prophesied these things.

I think when he heard these things, he was very impressed. That's not good enough. Not good enough to be impressed by the Gospel story.

Not good enough to be impressed by predictive prophecy. You have to act on it. Something's got to change. It begins with repentance, the first step. And that means change, change directions. You now side with God.

You're going the other way, not your own way. Even if it is a struggle, God will receive that. This is Cross-Reference Radio with our pastor and teacher Rick Gaston. Rick is the pastor of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville. Pastor Rick is currently teaching through the book of Isaiah. Please stay with us after today's message to hear more information about Cross-Reference Radio, specifically how you can get a free copy of this teaching. But for now, let's join Pastor Rick in the book of Isaiah chapter 45 with today's edition of Cross-Reference Radio.

Isaiah 45. It's interesting that, you know, the world, their music, the emphasis is on the beat. With us, the emphasis is on the words.

The words are supposed to have a pack of punch. The ruler and overruler is the title of this evening's consideration. When Isaiah wrote these words, Assyria is still the superpower in that region of the world. Persia, which the Medes and the Persians would overthrow the Babylonians, the Babylonians would overthrow the Assyrians and then the Medo-Persians. But at this time in history, Persia was just really nothing, not compared to Assyria. Jerusalem, life was just thriving there.

Things were flourishing for them. There was no evidence through the naked eye that destruction and deportation awaited Judah at the hands of the Babylonians, who also were not a big power at this time. And yet the prophet was able to lay it all out long before the events took place. And that generation of Jews that lived to read Isaiah's prophecy in his day either trusted the Word of God from the prophet or did not. And that generation that then saw those prophecies fulfilled, same thing, because many of them remained just not receptive and idolatrous and difficult.

But then, of course, many others responded. Nothing's changed in all those times. Two thieves on the cross, two outlaws on the cross, one hears the message and receives Christ, the other rejects him. So looking at verse one, thus says Yahweh to his anointed, 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. Now, Cyrus is the only pagan ruler to be honored with such a title from God through his prophets. And he is selected for a purpose.

And that purpose will be to restore the Jewish people to the promised land from Babylon. Again, these events are 150 years away. Cyrus won't be born for another 100 years. We've talked about him already. But he is a vessel of God.

He will be when he comes to the throne. He's first introduced to us in chapter 41 in verses 2 through 4. But that term, anointed, that is used here is the basis for our word Messiah, although he is not the Messiah. It is used in the Old Testament in a general way, mainly when a king was selected or the sons of Aaron. They were anointed.

They were chosen for service. And that word Mashiach was used for them also. And of course, by the time we come to the New Testament, it is reserved for Jesus Christ. And the woman at the well, she said, I know when Messiah comes. And Jesus said, well, the one you're talking to you is the one, is the Messiah. And so that title loaned to Cyrus as one that God has pinpointed for a particular work. God is sovereign, even over the unbelievers, even over the unbelieving kings, the pagan kings. Daniel, in his fourth chapter, addressing Nebuchadnezzar, who was not on the scene yet, not even born yet. He'll come later in history. But at that time, Daniel writes this when Nebuchadnezzar went crazy because of pride. He lost his mind, went insane. And the words to him was unto you know that the most high rules in the kingdom of men and gives it to whomever he chooses.

Now this can cause a lot of problems for us because the questions abound. We're going to come to God. Does he create calamity? Where does it come from?

What's going on with that? Well, Isaiah is going to talk about it, but right now he continues here in verse one, whose right hand I have held, though not a worshiper of Yahweh. For the believer, when God holds our hand, it indicates his presence and his compassion and his call for bravery on our part because of our faith that he is with us. But for the unbelieving instrument of God, it indicates the sovereign control and presence, even with such one as Cyrus. And the affairs of men are never out of God's control, which brings us to free will. Free will is similar. We are free to make choices. We are created in the image of God in spite of the fall, and one of those things is we can make moral decisions. We can decide what is right and what is wrong. We are free to elect or we are free to reject. However, we are not free to choose the consequences of those choices. And this is important in life to learn that the consequences belong to the sovereignty of God.

There can be a good outcome or it can be not so good, and that's why we become students of the Word, to find out how to make right choices in Christ. But since God called this a hundred years before his birth, he retains the rights of foretelling, prophecy with purpose, divine prophecy. And when Cyrus conquered in that ancient world, he was told that it was the God of the Jews who had long ago had this written down. Remember, the Jews, they were in many high places in the Babylonian court, the Medo-Persian court.

They held high positions and they had a lot of influence. And they most certainly would tell the rulers what was in the scriptures if it pertained to them. And this is, remember Ezra, the book of Ezra that documents the return of the Jewish people from the Babylonian captivity, when Cyrus will give the order. The Jews wrote that book and it was the Jews in the court that laid out, hey, Cyrus is making this edict. We'll get to some of those quotes in a little bit. But God is in control of it all.

A bookmark in your head that causes problems, perplexities that we should talk about in a little bit. And so there would be no question that Cyrus would hear about these prophecies and what is he going to do with them? Look, just because you see something miraculous or phenomenal, again, means still you've got to make that free will thing, that choice. Judas made his choice and went to his own place. The others, they acted on the miracles. So just because Cyrus sees his name in the ancient writings doesn't mean he's going to say, oh, Yahweh is God, there is no other. More than likely going to say Yahweh is a God and I've got mine and they're gods too.

That's how it's going to come out more than likely. To subdue nations before him and lose the armor, now of kings. That word armor is actually a poor rendering in the New King James Version. The translators likely attached the event to Isaiah 5.27 and they gave us an interpretive rendering.

Really the word is loin. So the fear is going to take hold of anybody who stands in the way of Cyrus and he's going to conquer them. That's where Isaiah is going with all of this. So when you read these things, you say, what am I reading?

Well, I'm telling you what you're reading if you're still not sure. To open before him the double doors so that the gates will not be shut. Now this is a detailed prophecy, just a detail about Babylon's fall. Babylon had these double doors that faced this defensive moat that was around the city. Well, when the Medes and Persians conquered the city, those doors were open. They were unlocked and they came in and they conquered the city pretty much peacefully.

In fact, the city was so big it took three days before some people in the city found out that there was a regime change. And so an interesting little detail there that the Jews would have picked up but whether anybody would have believed them is another story. In verse 2, I will go before you and make the crooked places straight.

I will break in pieces the gates of bronze and cut the bars of iron. And so God will clear the way and in 539 years there about before the coming of Christ, Cyrus, he is going to conquer the Babylonians and then he is going to release the Jews to their promised land. And he's going to do that to other people too. That's important that we don't think, oh, just the Jews received this blessing or this treatment. He did it to many peoples.

It was his radical policy. We've talked about this in other sections concerning, probably in Nehemiah and Ezra. Anyway, verse 3, I will give you the treasures of darkness, the hidden riches of secret places that you may know that I, Yahweh, who call you by your name, am the God of Israel. So God is serving him notice. He's saying, I'm going to do these things ahead of time that you will understand that the God of the Jews is the only God, which was a big issue. Now these unseen riches, the treasures of darkness, it's not, it's actual literal, not this poetic language. There's other places in the scripture where it is, but here the treasuries of those days were built without windows for obvious reasons.

I would think, you know, you don't want bad guys to just find a portal. And so this is likely an allusion to the wealth of Sardis, which Cyrus is going to capture the city of Sardis and Croesus the king was, you know, the Midas touch, you know, he was this incredible amount of wealth he possessed. Well, it's all going to go to Cyrus.

Cyrus enriched himself with incalculable amounts of wealth from Croesus there in Sardis and from the Babylonians. And God had, again, prophesied these things. I think when he heard these things, he was very impressed. That's not good enough. Not good enough to be impressed by the Gospel story.

Not good enough to be impressed by predictive prophecy. You have to act on it. Something's got to change. It begins with repentance, the first step. And that means change, change directions. You now side with God.

You're going the other way, not your own way, even if it is a struggle. God will receive that. He continues here in verse three at the bottom that you may know that I am Yahweh, who call you by your name, am God of Israel. Now, this chapter, all of Isaiah is just, you know, these pockets of Isaiah that reaches out to the Gentiles.

This is one of the chapters that does it a lot. And here he is reaching out to the Gentile king, which means he's reaching out to Gentiles. Because if Cyrus is given the opportunity to come to Yahweh, then everybody should have that opportunity.

Of course, that simplifies it. It's saying it that way, but in reality, there's so much clutter in the way to get people to leave the false gods of their life. But evidently, Cyrus acknowledged Yahweh as God of Israel, but went no further. Verse four, 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. Interesting, in the New Testament, when we get to the elect, it's by context, we understand if he's talking about the church or the Jews. Matthew 24, he's talking about Israel, but in John's second or third letter to the elect lady, he's talking about the church.

So you have to follow the context, and for good reasons, John would use that, because they embraced the Old Testament as we should also, and the language of the Old Testament. Proof that we do is we name out many of our children, or have Old Testament names, like David, no, not Goliath, though, he doesn't get in. Anyway, the identity of the Jews is called out, Jacob, my servant, the Jews, God is participating with them still. I have named you, now he's talking about Cyrus, and his successes are not random.

That's a big part of his life and all life. They were arranged, his successes, and they were announced by Yahweh over a century beforehand. There is no random or whimsical selections with God. There are no random or whimsical selections with God. He elected the Jewish people because of Abraham's faithfulness at a time when God couldn't find faithfulness, he found what he was looking for in Abraham.

He made other right stuff. But it wasn't because of Abraham's work, his deeds, and boy, he's a good boy. It was because of his faith. John chapter 8, Jesus said, your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day, and he saw it and was glad. Well, that ruffled a lot of feathers, because he was telling them that he was self-existent, that he's always been, and he's speaking about what we know to be a Christophany, an appearance of Jesus Christ in the Old Testament as a full-grown man, before the virgin birth. And there are several of those events in the Old Testament, and Jesus is referring to this one. You know, when he went to tell Abraham, I'm going to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah. And there was Abraham interceding on behalf of those people.

You know, the flesh would say, yes, Lord, can I watch? But Abraham was praying, Lord, are you sure about this? It's a remarkable passage of scripture put this way, not to show that God needed some help with Abraham, but to just bring out these attributes of a righteous man in the presence of a holy God. Well, also in John, John 6, Jesus answered and said to them, this is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he sent. There are those that say, well, you know, faith is, you know, we're saved by grace.

We are. But through faith, without that faith, you're not going to get that grace. And it is a work of faith, not of flesh, and that distinction should be made. Some doctrines get all twisted to me or upside down because they, well, faith is a work, so God has to save you. You can't come to him. That's not even in the Bible.

But anyway, that's another story. Anyway, God made his choice of Abraham. Then he refined his choice, began to narrow it down. And to do this, he chose Jacob, who became Israel, but he filtered out Ishmael and Esau, Abraham's son, his other son, and he had others with Keturah, and his grandson, Esau. Why didn't they get chosen? What got Jacob chosen? Isaac and Jacob, that's the line of the Jewish people. Well, we know, of course, because we don't read of the God of Ishmael, the God of Esau. We do read of the God of Isaac and Jacob, because those other two men were just not the right stuff that God was looking for. I'm not saying they're doomed and going to hell. I am saying that they lacked what God wanted, and he founded enough of it in Isaac and Jacob.

And thank God they weren't perfect men, because then that would overshadow us, like, man, I can't be that good. Well, it's not our goodness that gets us saved. It's faith.

It's trusting God's goodness. Well, he further refined, after choosing to identify with the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, another filter was put in place to eliminate all who refused the lordship of another son, the son of Abraham according to the flesh. But the Spirit, this is the Son of God. This time, it's not Abraham's son Isaac, but God's son. God so loved the world, he gave his only begotten son. When we say gave, he means from the manger to the cross to the empty tomb to the return. Luke chapter 2, this is, you know, I love, these are my devotions, I'm in Luke also. I read the whole Bible every day. What would you do if you could do that? You'd be so, what?

Because it's impractical. Anyway, Luke chapter 2, then the angel said to them, these are the shepherds out in the field, and shepherds were tough guys, not only because they had to deal with the sheep and all that's out there, but they had to deal with, you know, sheep robbers and robbers, period. So they usually carried, you know, they were armed with little daggers and such. But anyway, these are the guys that the angels go to. Then the angel said to them, do not be afraid. Behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy. I bring you the gospel, which will be to all people. This is at the birth of Christ. There he is in the manger in Bethlehem, and the angel is saying, the gospel is for everyone. He didn't say, I'm bringing this to the Jewish people.

Well, they're included. Genesis 12 goes way, goes way back to Adam and Eve, but in Genesis 12, God said to Abraham, in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed, and the Jews miss this. Isaiah does not miss it. But the Jews as a people, they're still missing it. They still look down on Gentiles, and this is the rabbis pushing this forward over the centuries. Anyway, John 10 16, Jesus said, of the sheep I have, which are not of this fold.

We'll pause there. They say, well, I don't believe in the New Testament. Well, I can give you Old Testament verses. Jesus is just pointing to the New Testament, you know, pointing to the Old Testament verses in the New Testament.

Other sheep I have, which are not of this fold. That means non-Jews. I'm also, I must bring, and they will hear my voice, and there will be one flock and one shepherd. Now, when the people heard that, they weren't thinking Gentiles.

They were thinking people up in Galilee or somewhere or somewhere else, but then when Paul and Stephen and the rest come along, they figured it out, and they had a hard road. Anyway, he says here in verse four, though you have not known me. Now, his acknowledgement of Yahweh, when he does acknowledge Yahweh in Ezra chapter one, but it's superficial.

It's politics. And he, because again, he acknowledged other deities and other people's gods also. A blend of ecumenicism and universalism. You know, God's everywhere, you know, all religions work, and what happens when those two religions disagree with each other?

How do you reconcile that? Well, with Christianity, what happens when two denominations don't agree? Well, we always agree on the essentials of our faith.

Where we start getting into fistfights, verbal fistfights, is on the little stuff. How does God save a person? Well, the Calvinists have their wrong views about that. So little things like that, that's not a critical doctrine.

You can make it one by causing trouble, but there are other ones. There are Christians that don't believe in the rapture. That will not keep them out of heaven, they just get there slower.

People that don't believe in the rapture, you'll know when the rapture comes, they'll be the ones with the surprised look on their face and upside down. Well anyway, again, so his, Isaiah's prophecies do not require that Cyrus renounce his false gods. The spotlight is on God, calling it before it happens.

It's really not on Cyrus, he's just the instrument. And God's vessels, here's the thing about God's vessels, they have a spigot. They're not just, you know, they do not just keep everything, contain everything, a jar with a lid, like the Dead Sea.

When God pours into his vessels, it is with the intention of working through that vessel, flowing, and there must be an outflow. That is effective Christianity. And you really can't do that sitting home in your living room all day and not rubbing elbows with people who annoy you. And other people are always a problem.

It's always somebody else's kid. But anyway, you've got to learn how to deal with that. Fact, he, there's a cylinder, the Cyrus cylinder, it's not very big, it's made of clay.

And it is, his scribes wrote down things about Cyrus, that he attributed his successes to Marduk and Nebo, his gods. So there's the proof. Is there an outside chance that's along the line he converted? Yeah, of course, but you can't live that way. You have to deal with what's in front of you, the facts that you have. And the fact is, he's not converted. And that's going to come up, I'm saying this because we're coming to things that will make us have to reconcile these words. Verse 5, continuing Isaiah speaks, God speaking through him, I am Yahweh and there is no other, there is no God besides me.

I will gird you, though you have not known me. And that leaves room for, well, there you go, he doesn't know him. But anyway, this is the first of seven, there are no other gods, just in this chapter, and Isaiah hits it many times in, as I mentioned, this chapter in chapter 43, chapter 44, and chapter 46. The Jewish people in Jerusalem, going to the temple, but also had their little shrines at home.

I guess today we'd say they had their little statue on the dashboard still. Anyway, the king of Assyria, he was held accountable because he was so arrogant, of course, he refused to acknowledge the Jewish God. And in chapter 10, we read about that and God dealt with him for that. Cyrus is going to acknowledge the Jewish God as the God of the Jews. We remember the ancients had believed in the local gods.

But unlike the Assyrians, Cyrus helped the Jewish people reestablish their nation and their temple. Thanks for tuning in to Cross Reference Radio today. Cross Reference Radio is a ministry of Pastor Rick Gaston of Calvary Chapel, Mechanicsville in Virginia. If you'd like to learn more about this ministry, we invite you to visit our website, crossreferenceradio.com.

You'll find a number of teachings from Pastor Rick available there. We also encourage you to subscribe to our podcast. When you subscribe, you'll be notified of new additions of Cross Reference Radio. Just search for Cross Reference Radio on your favorite podcast app. You can also follow the links at crossreferenceradio.com. We're glad we were able to spend time with you today. Tune in next time to continue learning from the book of Isaiah with Pastor Rick right here on Cross Reference Radio.