Well thus says the Lord who created the heavens, who is God, not a question, it's a statement, 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 Yahweh and there is no other. You get the feeling, God's a little annoyed with those who are saying, well, you know, God's just, deism, deism teaches God sort of wound up the earth like a clock and then walked away.
And many of the founding fathers were deists, but that is an insult to God. 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 this edition of Cross-Reference Radio. God is said to cause whatever he allows, otherwise there's no such thing as sovereignty. Just because it is said that way doesn't mean that's all of the story. We see God as sovereign and therefore responsible, which causes me a problem when I'm suffering.
Where is the love he's talking about? Well, our imperfect knowledge will always mess things up and that's why we default by faith to what delight that we have from his word. He cannot be God if created things can hold him accountable.
It doesn't make any sense. He holds himself accountable. He's going to get to it elsewhere in Amos too, but he comes out and says, I make peace, I create calamity.
How do you create calamity? Well, the conditions are under his control and so ultimately the buck does stop there, but not in the sense of, it's sort of like God made a stone, but he didn't put it into the heart or the hand of Cain to strike his brother Abel and kill him with it. And so there you have, yeah, I made the stone, I saw that was going to happen, I let it happen and I got my reasons why. So maybe we'll open a little bit more light on this.
This is a question, I don't want to pretend that I've got all the easy answers on this, but I believe I have enough of them for me to sleep well at night on this one. In scripture language, as I mentioned, God is frequently said to do that which he has permitted. In physical creation, darkness is the absence of light, but the presence of God is light even in the darkness. God is light. Evil is the absence of love, but God is love. In the presence of whatever men do in darkness, 1 John 4.8, God is love.
1 John 1.5, God is light. So God's unwillingness to instantly deal with evil does not mean that what he is doing is evil. I mean, that's how we think. We apply that to humans. It's negligence. If you don't, this is where I used to live, if you didn't shovel your walk in a proper time due to negligence and someone walked and slipped on the ice, the snow, they could sue you for negligence. You had a responsibility as a homeowner.
Now you can probably sue the shovel maker, the city, and the clouds. But anyway, so if again any other way, there would be no sovereignty. You cannot explain the wickedness of this world as merely human. And you can't explain it by saying God is the cause of it.
Those things don't fit. It is human, the evil that we see when humans commit evil, because there are other calamities. Your volcano wiping out a village is pretty evil. It is human plus something else. We know that something else is. This is why non-Christian religions are so successful.
Because there's something else involved. There are supernatural forces beneath the surface, hard at work. You can create an environment where if you accept the truth and can reason your truth through against those things that are forbidden, you be killed. Again, you can go to Saudi Arabia and stand in Chop Chop Square and make the boast of Christ being the only savior, the only God, and you will be killed.
So they have created a situation in which truth is suppressed and evil has done this. There are no competing deities, Isaiah is saying. God alone, Yahweh alone. There are competing ideas of God.
So Isaiah, he attacks polytheism, that there are other gods, and he also attacks what is Zoroastrian beliefs, where yin-yang comes from. There are these evil forces in the universe and they're just duking it out. There's no evidence.
There's no way, you know, just their opinion. And so Amos chapter 3 verse 6, they're the prophet speaking with just as much authority as Isaiah says, if the trumpet is blown in a city, will not the people be afraid? That's the alarm. If there is calamity in a city, will not Yahweh have done it? Well, whether he is, these rhetorical questions, whether they're rhetorical or just fair questions, it's a fair question. He is saying God is never out of control, but that doesn't make him evil. So he says here in verse 7, I, the Lord, do these things.
Isaiah 55, 8, for my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says Yahweh. That puts man in his place, don't forget. You don't know everything. You do not have perfect knowledge.
You don't understand how all these things affect other things. My sister had a car triumph. It was a disaster. It had two cylinders that had to be, like 14 of them. They all had to be in unison. Nobody on earth could get that right. It was never right.
It was just, that's why you don't find them anymore, I guess. But one of my points is there are other things that are involved, and to get them and to synchronize them, to get the results that God is looking for under these circumstances way past us. Verse 8, I hope that doesn't confuse you any.
It should not depress you. Sovereignty of God is not something we fear. It's we rejoice. Yeah, the Lord is in control.
We get it. Proving ground, this is what this life is. Thank God for the blessings that we do have and that this life is not forever. Verse 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, Yahweh, have created it. And so his will overrules in the affairs of men.
He's in control. Verse 9, woe to him who strives with his maker. That's, you don't need a comment. There, 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 the handiwork say, he has no hands? Woe to him who says to his father, what are you begetting?
Or to the woman, what have you brought forth? So Isaiah is saying, you know, let's reason through this. This is all we can do.
We have this ability to reason. Well, let's not waste it. Cyrus wasted it. The crowning moment of his life before God was to send the Jews back and he missed it. He missed his significance. So anyway, now the Lord is addressing the Jews that are criticizing him for using a pagan king. That was so bitter to them.
How could you use him? You know, why couldn't you not raise up an Elijah to set your people free of Samson to come wipe out the enemy? That's how they were thinking. And Isaiah is anticipating them challenging the earlier section of this prophecy. It is a great and deep truth to learn that we are nothing before God and we have nothing before God. We can rate ourselves with each other and you can boast there. Romans, Paul talks about this. That's not the standard that we're going to be judged by.
You're not going to be able to drive by the house of numbers, jails, prisons and say, well, I'm not as bad as those people there, so God's going to let me into heaven. Well, that's not the standard. The standard is Jesus Christ.
Are you as good as him? And if you're not, you're doomed unless he is your savior. And so the standards, who makes the rules? Well, the God who made the planet, the potter, decides what that clay is going to be. Whether it's going to be a lamp or a jug, he's the one that decides, not the clay.
And thus the folly and uselessness of rebellion. And he calls for faith. Through every turn in life, God calls for us to trust him. Alan Redpath wrote, until I accept this, I battle with God and imply that I know better than he. Well, you don't.
We don't. Again, Job chapter 9. God is wise in heart and mighty in strength. Who has hardened himself against him and prospered?
Show me somebody that has turned on God and has discovered immortality. Job wrote, see, the earlier part of Job was just the beginning of his troubles. So you say, yeah, he hung tough, he didn't curse God, you know, and blessed be the name of the Lord, and the Lord gives Lord Turks away. But now, by chapter 9, he's sick. He has lost his children. He's lost his wealth. He's lost his wife's support. He's lost his friends.
He's got nothing. And though he's on that roller coaster, talking about what God did to him, because he understands. He even says, if it's not God, then who? It can only be God.
When he says what we have in chapter 9, who has hardened himself against God and prospered, it is profound coming from somebody going through such misery as he is. So the potter, it is one of the most perfect illustrations of God's sovereignty, his creativity, and his participation in creation. That image of the potter, and you know, the Holy Spirit is, for example, an emblem of the presence of the Holy Spirit, is water. Potter doesn't have water. He can't make anything with that clay.
If clay doesn't have water, it turns brittle and it just falls apart. So, you know, it's such profound lessons in just a little thing. So Isaiah 29, Isaiah 64, this chapter here, Jeremiah 18, Romans chapter 9, the potter is brought up, metaphorically pointing to God.
So the ridiculous idea of clay arguing with the potter or an unborn child arguing with their parents is crazy. And God says to the Jews, the idea of you arguing with God, him using Cyrus, is just a revelation of how little faith you have. The righteous will accept it because God has revealed that he is good.
In a cursed world, he is still good. Verse 11, thus says Yahweh, the Holy One of Israel and his maker, asked me of things to come concerning my sons and concerning the work of my hands. You command me. This is ironic language, definition of irony.
I'll read this. The expression of one's meaning by using language that normally signifies the opposite, typically for humorous or emphatic effect. So if, when things are going wrong and you say, oh, wonderful, well, that's irony because it's not wonderful. But you're, you know, you're just, you know, kind of just expressing that it's not wonderful and you wish it were.
Well, we say, why do you bring that up? Because this verse is an ironic verse. Actually, this is closer to it. There's one translation that actually gets this closer to the Hebrew, if you big do the work, and I am not endorsing this translation. They just got this one right. So don't go run out and get this, the NIV.
I shouldn't even have said it, right? But this is how it translates to this verse. Concerning things to come, do you question me about my children or give me orders about the work of my hands? So it's a whole different approach. And it's probably closer to what is being said.
It's still in the other ones. Most of them are just like, as I read it in New King James, but you have to really drill down to what is he saying? And so really it's God saying, do you dare question me? The Jews of his day would have got it.
The potter has the rights. Verse 12, I made, let's see how far we get tonight. I made the earth and created man on it. My hands stretched out the heavens and all their host I have commanded. Verse 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 Yahweh of host. So God says that, you know, of course he's doing this and Cyrus is a good fit. He's raised him up in righteousness.
He's not a monster. He's not like Herod, you know, ordering the deaths of the, the infants in Bethlehem. He's found in Cyrus, a Gentile unbeliever, what he needs to bring about. This was just so remarkable that God can even do these things, that he can stay ahead of them, see them coming. And just so many, he can get that engine to work the right way.
All those cylinders firing the right way. So again, Isaiah anticipating the backlash. The repatriated Jews, when the time comes and Cyrus sends them back, they're going to love this stuff. They're going to be, this is what Isaiah was saying. We are that generation. We're saying as we read Revelation and we see all these things happening with these creatures and these wars and we're looking at military ordinance and drones and cashless society and implants of chips and we're saying we're living in the days that these prophecies were addressing. John wasn't aware, he couldn't do it in John's day.
We are seeing it. Well, Ezra chapter one, thus says Cyrus, king of Persia. Remember, there's a Jewish person writing this. The king makes a decree, says, okay, make it law.
And they, sort of like speech writers. And he looks at it and says, yeah, that's good, fine. But he's not converting because they use this language. Thus says Cyrus, king of Persia, all the kingdoms of the earth. Yahweh, God of heaven has given me. Well, that's true. He has commanded me to build him a house at Jerusalem, which is in Judah. And that is true. And the Jews wrote this down, showed him the prophecies. He says, I sign off on that. And there we have it.
Well, there's some more to come in a little bit if we have time. So I've already covered that he was polytheistic. He believed in other gods. Verse 14, thus says Yahweh, the laborer of Egypt and the merchandise of Cush and of the Sabeans, men of stature shall come over to you. They shall be yours. They shall walk behind you. They shall come over in chains and they shall bow down to you.
And they will make supplication to you saying, surely God is in you and there is no other God. So now you have these characters from Africa, south of Egypt, Nubia, and they're actually quoting Isaiah saying that there are no other gods. What this is, is a picture of prisoners of war, but there's no war.
So it has to do with their conscience, surrendering. And Isaiah is not the only one to bring this out. Incidentally, the men of Seba, they were the ones that murdered Job's servants and stole all his stuff. They were one of them. Anyway, so the men of stature, the men of, the tall men of Seba, that's Seba is where they were from. Exactly not sure we're in Africa somewhere, somewhere over in that Middle East, right? Like it's going to matter to us. Like, boy, I really wish I knew where that was.
Why? Well, anyway, they shall come over to you. If these people can turn to the God of Abraham, so can all people. That's one of the lessons that comes out of this. When it says and they shall be yours, they shall walk behind you, they shall come over in chains. The chains are metaphoric for convicted converts because there's no evidence of war here.
Not, this is, we can't find this in history and it's not likely going to happen in the future. And I'll have to back that up with Zechariah in a little bit. So moving down, they shall bow down to you. They're the humbled converts finding salvation in the company of a nation that they once despised. Well, this is messianic. This is the messianic kingdom, age. 1 Corinthians 14, Paul talked about something like this in his day. And thus the secrets of his heart are revealed and so falling down on his face, he will worship God and report that God is truly among you. And this is Paul saying, stop speaking in tongues in front of everybody.
They'll know what's happening. Preach the word so they can get saved and come and understand. Revelation 3, 9.
Indeed, this is the church of Philadelphia, the best of the churches, they and Sardis. Indeed, I will make those of the synagogue of Satan who say they are Jews but are not, but lie. Indeed, I will make them come and worship before your feet and know that I have loved you. And so there's going to be a humbling process, but it doesn't necessarily dictate if they are saved.
Thus every knee shall bow, every tongue shall confess. Well, a lot of those people, they're going to be forced. They won't have a choice, but that doesn't mean they're going to be right with God. Better to do it by free will than have an angel shove you to the ground and say bow.
Although I don't think it's going to happen that way, but it makes good, good, it's entertaining. They will make supplication to you saying surely God is in you and there is no other. There is no other God. Well, this was indicated in Isaiah chapter two, verses two through four, the magnetism that the Jews were supposed to possess, drawing other people to Yahweh. And they never did it. When they became Christians, they did. Paul is just one John, Peter, they're examples of this. These are post great tribulation converts to God, converted to Christ.
Zechariah chapter eight, he says it in a few places, but this is probably a good one. Thus says the Lord of hosts, in those days, ten men from every language of the nation shall grasp the sleeve of a Jewish man saying, let us go with you, for we have heard that God is with you. So at the end of the great tribulation there are going to be a lot of survivors on the planet, in spite of the carnage, and they won't know anything about God.
Well, not much. And they want to learn. And it's not going to be just because Christ has established his kingdom in Jerusalem that they're going to like, osmosis is going to, you know, it's going to seep into them. No, they're going to have to learn.
Read the Bible, do their devotion, go to church. They're going to have to do what we do. We'll be in our glorified bodies. There'll be a whole other, it's going to be like the angels, if the angels could live amongst us. Well, that's what it's going to be like in the kingdom age. We will be like the angels, physically, and amongst those who are still prone to death, prone to sin. Going to be quite remarkable. Anyway, verse 15, truly you are God who hides yourself, O God of Israel, the Savior.
Isaiah has this outburst here. We remember Proverbs 25, it is the glory of God to conceal a matter, but the glory of kings is to search out a matter. And then 2929 Deuteronomy, that God has made some things available for us, other things, they're not. They're for him. Jesus said ask and you shall receive, seek and you will find, knock and it will be open to you.
In the English it's an acronym, ASK, ask, seek, knock. So it's a good, easy verse to memorize. Verse 16, they shall be ashamed and also disgrace all of them. They shall go in confusion together who are makers of idols.
We would like to have him put makers of idols, this is what's going to happen to you. But typical in the scripture, they make the statement, then they tell you who they're talking about. Sometimes that can be buried in the verses. Well, here fortunately it's in the same verse.
He's talking to the idol makers. Verse 17, but Israel shall be saved by Yahweh with an everlasting salvation. You shall not be ashamed nor disgraced forever and ever.
That's a big point. Everlasting salvation. To the church at Smyrna that was being persecuted to death, Jesus said, he who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches, to all the believers. He who overcomes shall not be hurt by the second death. The second death is a person that dies, leaves this world, not saved, and then will stand before the judgment of God and be finally cast away.
That's the second death. And he's saying, the believers won't have the, once we leave this life, we're done with temptation and judgment. That's behind us. 1 Thessalonians 4.17, then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so shall we ever be with the Lord.
There is nothing that's going to get to us then. Verse 18, for thus says the Lord who created the heavens, who is God, not a question it's a statement, 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 Yahweh and there is no other. You get the feeling God's a little annoyed with those who are saying, well, you know, God's just, deism, deism teaches God sort of wound up the earth like a clock and then walked away. And many of the founding fathers were deists. But that is an insult to God.
That would make him a deadbeat dad. And he is not, no such thing. He is not random. He has a purpose. And God formed the earth not to be inhabited by countless God haters and crucifiers, but it is. Colossians 1 16, I'm not going to read it, but it does say that through Christ all things were created through him and for him.
There's purpose there. Verse 19, I have not spoken in secret in the dark place of the earth. I did not say to the seed of Jacob, seek me in vain. I Yahweh speak righteousness.
I declare things that are right. So he's a little, again, he sounds righteously annoyed. Paul said he had be burned with righteous indignation towards things. Ezekiel, God said concerning the destruction of Jerusalem, you shall know that I have done nothing without a cause that I have done it says the Lord.
So there he says, yeah, you want to blame somebody. It's my judgment. I declare things that are right. Verse 19, I declare things that are right. Well, yes Lord, cause I am, I tire of this generation's values and views of God in life.
This culture without God's guidance, it becomes quite sickening, but that does not excuse us from doing what we're supposed to do. 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.
