The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen.
This morning’s sermon is from the book of Isaiah, chapter 45. What you might or might not know about the book of Isaiah is that, number one, you do know it was written by Isaiah, but it was written over a period of 40 years. It spanned the course of his earthly ministry, that is, it was written from 739 BC to 701 BC. And typically, and rightfully so, commentators divide the book into three parts.
Part one consists of chapters 1 through 35, and this is nothing but pure Law, really. A few spots of Gospel, like the announcement that a virgin will conceive in her womb and bear a son, and his name will be called Immanuel. But short of that, good news is pretty rare in those first 35 chapters. It’s all about Israel’s infidelity, its turning away from the true God, Yahweh Elohim, to false gods and worshiping them. Part one then consists of a series of judgments against Israel for their sins, especially that sin of idolatry.
Part two is chapters 36-39, and they’re mostly historical in nature, not prophetic. For example, they tell us about Sennacherib’s invasion of the land of Israel, Hezekiah’s illness, near death, and recovery, or the visit from the Babylonian envoys who wished to somehow make a partnership.
Part three is chapters 40 through 66, and there, for the purposes of this morning, and really for world history, they’re part of the most important elements of Isaiah’s prophecy. In these chapters, Isaiah writes about Israel’s future glory and their rescue from every conceivable enemy, and the promise of the Messiah renewed, and the founding and establishment of the Messianic kingdom. It is a section filled with joy and good news, against the backdrop of slavery and imprisonment.
The assigned reading for this 21st Sunday in the season of Pentecost is the first seven verses of chapter 45. It gave Isaiah’s contemporaries a look at what lay ahead for Israel’s future, during a time when Israel would suffer a spiritual testing and agony during their time in exile in Babylon.
God had promised, as you know, the Hebrew patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, a homeland of their own. Their descendants would have their own country and nation. And then that country and nation, the city of Jerusalem, and most of all, most importantly, the temple, where God would dwell among His people, that was still the reality when Isaiah took to writing those latter portions of his book. That was the reality on the ground. They had their nation, they had their city, Jerusalem. They still had the southern kingdom. They even still had the temple. But that was a temporary thing.
Isaiah 40-66 were about future events. It was about what was going to happen in the distant future. These chapters are prophecy in the classical sense, in definition of the word. In the future, the Israelites would be conquered by the king of Babylon. In the future, they would be taken into exile and made slaves in the kingdom of Babylon. But through the prophet Isaiah, the Lord God announced that when the time was right, He would use an unlikely world power and an unlikely ruler to return His children to the promised land, to restore the city of Jerusalem, and most of all, to rebuild the temple, where God could once again take up residence, where He had promised.
The name of the ruler: Cyrus, a pagan Persian king. In the language of the Old Testament scholar, Cyrus foreshadowed the coming of Christ Jesus. That is, he was a type of Christ. And the language used by God in the Old Testament to describe him reflects that fundamental reality. Though a pagan who worshiped many gods and idols, God calls Cyrus “the anointed one.” It’s a title used in this case with small letters, no capital, to describe the function that God would assign to Cyrus.
Thus verse one: “Thus says the Lord to His anointed one, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have grasped, to subdue nations before him and to loose the belts of kings, and to open doors before him, that gates may not be closed.”
The Lord made it clear that Cyrus would be raised up to be ruler over first the Persians and then the Babylonians. These victories would come about solely because of what the Lord God Himself had ordained and what He would do through this pagan servant. Cyrus, he would ultimately win the victory over Babylon. He would return the Israelites to their home in Jerusalem. He would help provide money and materials so they could rebuild both their city, their nation, and above all, the temple. Just as God once spoke to Balaam through Balaam’s donkey to accomplish His will, He now also uses the talents and the office of a pagan worshiper named Cyrus to accomplish His will as well.
Whether he realized it or not, Cyrus became a weapon in the hand of the Lord God, Yahweh Elohim. Now Cyrus reigned over Babylon from 539 to 530 BC. Prior to his victory over the Babylonian Empire, the prophet Daniel had been taken captive by King Nebuchadnezzar. When he was taken captive, he was a young man, but very smart. He was among the best of the Hebrews, so much so that Nebuchadnezzar had him taught and trained to become a high-ranking official in the government of Babylon. When Cyrus came to rule over Babylon, Daniel served him just as well. Daniel probably taught Cyrus about the Lord God, Yahweh Elohim, and the religion of the Israelites, whom now Cyrus held captive.
His decision to send back the Jews to Jerusalem, though, and to help rebuild the temple, wasn’t a matter of piety, it was a matter of foreign policy. He did this for other tribes and peoples too. It was a way of expanding his political influence and power throughout the Middle Eastern region without making unnecessary war. Cyrus was known as a tolerable and kind king who helped save slaves and give them their freedom to return home.
But here’s the thing that you ought to keep in mind, because this point goes to the trustworthiness of the very written text of the Word of God. Isaiah was given to write about King Cyrus 200 years before Cyrus was born. Isaiah was given to write about how this change in world dominance and power would come about, and that it would come about by the Lord God and His hand, and His hand alone. Never in the history of prophetic utterances has such a prophecy been given in such detail as we have here in chapter 45, and a couple of other places that also will be quoted in a minute.
Here’s another telling fact: never in the history of the Lord God, Yahweh Elohim, did He ever give anybody such high praise and official titles as He does Cyrus. For example, Isaiah 44:28: “It is I who says of Cyrus, ‘He is My shepherd, and he will carry out My desire.’ And he says of Jerusalem, ‘She will be built,’ and of the temple, ‘Your foundation will be laid.'” This is very high praise for a man who worships idols.
Cyrus himself was of rather unimpressive origins. Babylon was the superpower of its time, and Cyrus was a Persian. We know Persia today as Iran. His father was king, and he succeeded his father as a king of a very large tribe, but not the king of Persia, just the king of his region. Still, his rise to power surpassed all expectations when he became king of Persia through military conquest.
And as for the Israelites, the Lord God had adopted them long before there was a Cyrus. He had given Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob the promises of a homeland, and the greater promise of a Savior who would rescue them from sin, death, and the power of the devil. It was the Lord God who had put His people into the promised land. The Lord God had fought the Israelites’ battles and defeated their enemies. He had given them the temple where He would dwell among His people, and they could come into His presence with offerings, thanksgivings, and prayers. The Lord had given them kings to rule in His stead. He had even promised King David that the Messiah would come through David’s line and would reign over the house of Israel forever.
But God’s children in return were unfaithful to the Lord God. They too became worshipers of false gods, even those of Babylon. So in 587 BC, God sent Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, to lay siege to Jerusalem and to destroy it and to raze the temple to the ground, so that not one stone would be left upon another. He captured the king of Israel. He killed his sons in front of the king. He took the king off, bound in chains, to walk all the way back to Babylon. He gathered up the high priests in the temple and had them all executed. He took all the gold and bronze vessels of the temple for himself to increase his own wealth. He razed the temple to the ground and took survivors that were left in the city off to Babylon to be his slaves.
In the midst of all that, the people of Israel began to wonder if the Lord God had forsaken them. Had He left them behind? Had He forgotten His own promises? And without the reassurance from God, they would lose all hope and cease to know the true God, Yahweh Elohim.
So there’s the history, that’s the background of the text this morning. So what’s the point of the history lesson? The point is that our God, the Lord God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, is both the God of world history, directing the course of world events, and He is your God, your Father, your Redeemer, your Rescuer, and your Deliverer, who works all things, both in world history and in your own personal history, to the good for them who love the Lord.
And that is a message that the Christian church and our neighbors desperately need to hear today. Western civilization is crumbling before our eyes. Our countries and communities are drowning in sheer madness. We can’t even use rightly applied pronouns to specific people without risking our name and reputation, and even for some folks, their ability to make a living. Evil is thought praiseworthy, and goodness is something to be abolished. Family members are being led away from the church, churches that rightly preach and rightly teach and rightly administer the sacraments. The nuclear family has been utterly dismantled, torn apart by our own government and educational institutions. The churches of the West are emptying at an unprecedented rate. And many people, including Christians, are worried, rightfully so, for their children’s, their grandchildren’s, their great-grandchildren’s spiritual, moral, and financial well-being.
In the midst of all this, and so much more, we might find ourselves in a similar spot as those Israelites, wondering if God has forgotten us, our church, our family, our country, our community. Why are events unfolding around the globe the way they are, one might ask? Why is God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit allowing such violence to plague the planet? Why is He allowing such a great falling away from both common sense and the faith once delivered to the saints?
Isaiah’s message to the Israelites of old, and to us, is that our God does not, has not, and will not forget His children. He has not broken, and does not break, His promises. He is in charge, and He’s leading history to the place it needs to go, to its ultimate conclusion. He has promised, and He will deliver us from the slavery of our very own prisons. He will do for us what He did for His Old Testament children, and even more.
Isaiah was given to see a dark future that lay ahead of the Israelites, a time of war and captivity and slavery. And yet, against all odds, and by the hand of a pagan ruler yet to be born, Judah would be returned home. Jerusalem and the temple would be rebuilt. And somehow God would take up once again the line of the promised Messiah, Jesus the Christ.
During the 200-year period, Nebuchadnezzar rose, Cyrus was born and gained power. Israel and Judah and Jerusalem fell, the temple was destroyed. But God was not done. His Word remained steadfast and true. As Jesus Himself says, “Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will never pass away.”
Thus the Lord God said to His anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have grasped, to subdue the nations before him and loose the belts of the kings. That means you loose the belt, the sword falls down, it hits the ground, no longer is that king at war. To open doors before him, that gates may not be closed. “I will go before you, that is, Cyrus, and I will level exalted places. I will break into pieces doors of bronze, and I will cut through bars of iron. That you may know that it is I, the Lord, the God of Israel, who has called you by name. For the sake of My servant Jacob, and Israel My chosen, I call you by name, I name you, though you do not know Me.”
Cyrus was never in charge. The Lord was. He would take Cyrus by the hand and give him victory after victory until he conquered Persia and then Babylon. Then Cyrus would not only send the people back to Israel, to their land, but he would provide them with money and materials to rebuild their nation, their city Jerusalem, and their temple. All the time, God was leading world history, and the history in the lives of His chosen people, to a city named Bethlehem, to Nazareth, to Galilee, to Jerusalem, to the place of the skull, Golgotha, to the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea, and to that room on Pentecost Sunday. All of this happened to bring about all these things that are given in and done in the person and work of Jesus Christ.
All of this happened so that we would know the truth of God’s Word: “I am the Lord, and there is no other. Besides Me there is no God. I equip you, though you do not know Me, that people may know, from the rising of the sun and from the west, there is none besides Me. I am the Lord, and there is no other. I am the Lord who does all these things.”
As we watch history unfold before our eyes, and we hear the various combatants of one war after another invoking their false gods, for whom they spill their neighbors’ blood, we know that our God isn’t just the god of a party or a nation or a country or a civilization. He is the God of all creation. Nations come and nations go, but the Lord God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, remains forever.
Here again, Isaiah 40:15: “Behold, the nations are like a drop from a bucket, and are accounted as dust on the scales. All the nations are nothing before Him. They are accounted by Him as less than nothing and emptiness.” The Lord raises them up for a time, only to blow them away. That’s the truth of the history of the world. Nations rise and nations fall. Ours will take its turn, in God’s good order and good time. But whatever comes of the wars now raging, and whatever becomes of our country, there’s no reason to despair.
God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, the God who is God, is at work in all of history for the good of His church, and yes, even for your eternal well-being. In the person and the work of Jesus Christ, the Father has set His King on a holy hill in Zion. God’s King, the King of the Jews, the One that He has established to reign over all His creation, is Jesus Christ, the King of the Jews. He is the Jesus who cast out demons, healed the sick, ate with sinners and tax collectors, raised the dead, died for our sins, rose victoriously, and has given to His church the means of grace by which you are saved from all of your sins.
He is the God that has put to an end and won the victory over the devil, the world, and the old sinful nature. He said to Pilate the governor, as He stood about to be sentenced to death, “My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, My servants would rise up and fight to prevent My arrest by the Jewish leaders. But My kingdom is from another place.”
See, no matter what happens in world history, no matter what happens in your own personal history, it doesn’t change the fact that there is an end ordained by God for you. God will have His way with the devil. He’ll have His way with the world. He’ll even have His way with your old sinful nature. But He has another way too, the one for your new nature, the one where your sins are forgiven and will be no more. Your heavenly mansion will be prepared, and nothing in your baptism will change. God’s Word of promise remains.
In your baptism, you see, the God of history is the same God of your salvation. Your sins are forgiven. You belong to a kingdom of another place. Amen.
May the peace that surpasses all understanding keep your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.