Welcome to Delight in Grace, the teaching ministry of Rich Powell, pastor of Grace Bible Church in Winston-Salem. If the message of Scripture is true, if there is one God and Savior, the sovereign and benevolent Creator, then there's but one response, complete surrender and worship. Isaiah 45 portrays this great God who's working out His grand purposes in all the happenings around us, and His purposes are for the good of His people. Let's listen in on this message in the Isaiah series titled, Behold Your God. And once again, take your copy of the Scriptures and have them open to the 45th chapter of Isaiah's prophecy.
The title of the series is, Behold Your God. The main phrase for today is, I the Lord do all these things. It is important for us to know God, that our understanding of Him is equal to or worthy of the greatness and majesty of God. And that is the purpose of Isaiah's prophecy.
He writing about 700 B.C. and foretelling Israel, specifically the tribe of Judah, of what is going to be happening to them, that they will be taken captive by Babylon and then they will be brought back and restored to the land. And all of this, of course, spoken prophetically before, long before it even happened. It was important for them to understand this because they needed to know that God was behind what was going on.
Things weren't just happening. God was carrying out His purpose. And this morning, loved ones, do you understand that all the things that are going on in your life and surrounding you, in our culture and in our world, God is carrying out His purpose. We must know and understand God that way.
Otherwise, we will be guilty of worshipping a small God created in our image. Behold your God, from Isaiah chapter 45. In honor of the Lord and His word, would you please stand with me as we seek His aid to hear and heed His word. Father, it is our delight to fellowship with each other as we commune with you. To open up your word knowing that we have a word from God and to know that your word is truth, that your word is transforming. Father, I pray that you would open up our hearts and our minds, that our thinking will also be transformed, that our understanding of you will be worthy of who you are. Thank you for manifesting yourself and revealing yourself to us, Father, so that we can know you and walk with you and serve you with delight. Father, I pray that as we come to you this morning and to your word with open copies of the scriptures, that you would find us coming with expectancy and humility. Father, we know that your word is not given to us just for information, but for our transformation. We pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen.
Please be seated. The thing that we must know of God, as we find in the prophecy of Isaiah, is to know the providence of God. If there is anything that becomes clear in this chapter of Isaiah's prophecy, it is the providence of God. The providence of God, the one who says, I, the Lord, do all these things. The providence of God simply means this, that he sustains and guides human destiny by providing for the future through his foresight and intervention.
The infinite person, the creator of the universe, the creator redeemer sustains and guides human destiny by providing for the future through his foresight, that is, his infinite perspective and his intervention, his freedom to intervene in his creation at any time and in any way he pleases, because he is carrying out and guiding his purpose in human history. The example of this, which I think is a key text in this chapter, is verses 12 and 13. So look there with me, if you would, please.
Chapter 45, verse 12. I have made the earth and created man on it. I, my hands, stretched out the heavens. Now stop and think of that for a minute. When was the last time you contemplated the immensity of the universe in which we exist?
It is utterly incomprehensible. And yet this God is the one who says, I stretched it out with my hands and all their host I have commanded. He's in control of it all. Verse 13, now he goes, you've got that huge big picture of the wide angle lens, and then he brings it down to one specific focus, one event in history. God says, I command all of the immensity of the universe and I am also commanding this one specific event in history. Verse 13, I have raised him up in righteousness. That him is referring to Cyrus, the Medo-Persian king, who is going to authorize, I think we're a little bit ahead there, let's go back a bit.
Cyrus is going to authorize the return of the exiles. And God is the one who is in command of that. So we understand then from this, the providence of God, that God is the one who is in command of human history. Now God's providence and our dependence upon him have historically been acknowledged through prayer. If you'll remember this last Thursday, May 2nd, the first Thursday of May is always held as the national day of prayer. And it was an event designed to encourage people to, quote, turn to God in prayer and meditation.
Why? Because we acknowledge, A, our dependence upon him and B, his providence in the history of humanity. It was first practiced by George Washington in 1779 and it was formalized in American practice in 1952. However, Charlotte mayor Anthony Fox, recently appointed to be the next transportation secretary of the president's cabinet, declared last Thursday, quote, a day of reason in Charlotte. Fox said May 2nd, national day, that May 2nd was better served as a day of reason because, and I quote, the application of reason more than any other means has proven to offer hope for human survival on earth. Ladies and gentlemen, what we have before us is human arrogance. It is a lack to recognize the providence of God and may God rescue us from that, even in our own daily lives. It is God who is in control.
As Proverbs says in Proverbs 16, 9, a man's heart plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps. This is God's creation and God is ordering it. He is the one who has established the terms and we, as created beings, must recognize our contingency. We are dependent beings. We are not self-existent. We do not establish the terms and conditions of the development of our lives and the rest of creation.
Anthony Fox notwithstanding. We have examples of that in history then, as we have right here in Isaiah chapter 45. And there are two of them that I'm going to look at. The first one is King Cyrus himself. Now, King Cyrus was an ancient Medo-Persian king.
Now, look what happens. Remember, God is foretelling, he is prophesying that Judah is going to be restored to the land by the command of King Cyrus and he's going to make it possible. Now, look with me at the beginning of chapter 45. Thus says the Lord to, what does it say? His anointed. You know what that word is? Mashiach.
You recognize that word? This is how God works. He is attributing that title to a pagan king.
Why? Because God's carrying out his purpose. Think about that. And what does he say 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. 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. I will give you the treasures of darkness and the hidden riches of secret places that you may know that I, the Lord, who call you by your name, am the God of Israel. Now, what's going to happen? Cyrus was a powerful king and he was going to allow the Israelites to return and be restored to the land and in doing so, Cyrus was going to subdue other powerful nations and empires, i.e.
the Babylonian empire. Now, in that, Cyrus, in his human hubris, might be saying things like, Look how good I am. I'm letting these captives go back to their land. See what a nice guy I am? Or he might be saying, Look how powerful I am.
I'm subduing these other empires and these kingdoms. He might say, What a legacy I am going to have that I have crafted myself. He might say some of these things because it would be a very natural human thing to do, wouldn't it? One who does not recognize the providence of God.
You see, we have a problem. We as humans might have a tendency to think too much of ourselves and God, in His graciousness and His faithfulness, often grants us interactions in our life that bring our thoughts of ourselves down a notch or two. I have chosen recently to read biographies and one of the biographies that I'm reading currently is that autobiography of Mark Twain. Thanks for joining us here at Delight in Grace. You've been listening to Rich Powell, the lead pastor at Grace Bible Church in Winston-Salem. The Delight in Grace mission is to help you know that God designed you to realize your highest good and your deepest satisfaction in Him, the one who is infinitely good. We hope you'll join us again on Weekdays at 10 a.m.
