FBC Morning Light – March 10, 2022

Faith Baptist Church

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Well, a good Thursday morning to you. How are you doing on this wonderful March day?

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I trust things are going well for you. As you look at our world around us, we are reminded every day of the role that different world leaders play, whether you're talking about Vladimir Putin or Xi in China or Biden in the

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United States or Trudeau in Canada and on and on. We can go down the list of world leaders, right?

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And the fascinating thing about these guys is that they all think that they're something.

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They all think that they're in control, that they're in control of their country or their nation, at least have some measure of control.

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You know, they think they're operating pretty much independently, doing what they want to do, pursuing their agenda.

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They decide what their agenda is, they establish that agenda, and then they pursue it.

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And if they accomplish things, then they take credit for it. If they don't, then they blame somebody else and so on and so forth.

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But what we're reading in Ezra chapter 1, beginning the book of Ezra today in our

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Bible reading plan, is that these guys haven't got a clue as to what's really going on.

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They don't seem to realize that behind their decisions and their machinations and their agendas, there is a sovereign hand of God who is at work and he is accomplishing purposes that they don't even know about, they're not even aware of.

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And so this comes out in chapter 1, the first couple of verses of the book of Ezra. And we're introduced in Ezra 1 to this king of Persia that, well, actually we were introduced to him at the end of 2

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Chronicles chapter 36, in this book, Ezra begins basically reiterating what 2

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Chronicles told us, that Cyrus, the king of Persia, issued a decree and said that any of the

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Jews who wanted to go back to Jerusalem to rebuild the temple, they were free to go. God bless you and go on your way.

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But I want you to notice a couple of details about this. Number one, the man himself,

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Cyrus, who is the king of Persia, he was prophesied by name to be the king of Persia 200 years before he ever became the king of Persia.

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In the book of Isaiah chapter 44, the end of the chapter 44 into chapter 45, the

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Lord, through the prophet Isaiah, speaks of his servant, the

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Lord's servant, Cyrus. Not that Cyrus would be a godly man, a

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Jew, who would be a worshipper of God exclusively, a worshipper of Yahweh exclusively, and so on.

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No. But by the Lord saying that Cyrus is his servant, he's saying he will be the instrument in my hand to do what

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I want accomplished. 200 years, by name, God says that this is going to happen.

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Cyrus is going to be his instrument. Well, Cyrus becomes the king of Persia and the

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Persians overthrow the Babylonians and then, you know, Cyrus has this notion that he wants to free

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Jewish people to go back to Jerusalem. Where'd he get that idea? Where'd he get that idea? Well, again, two little details.

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Verse 1 tells us in the first place that this was decreed so that the word of the prophet

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Jeremiah might be fulfilled. The word of the Lord by the mouth of the prophet

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Jeremiah might be fulfilled. Now, lest you think, oh, okay, well, so Cyrus was reading his

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Bible one day and he came across these passages in Jeremiah that said, you know, this captivity, this

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Babylonian captivity is gonna last 70 years and then they would be released and be able to go back and rebuild the temple.

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And so Cyrus said, well, hey, you know what? Let me do the calculation. It's the 70th year. I need to send these people back.

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And no, that's not exactly the way it worked. Because as you continue reading in verse 1, it says, in order that the word of the

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Lord by the mouth of the prophet Jeremiah might be fulfilled, the Lord stirred up the spirit of Cyrus, king of Persia, so that he,

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Cyrus, made a proclamation throughout his kingdom. In other words, whatever

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Cyrus's motivations were, whatever he perceived as being politically expedient and thought that this would be a good thing for his kingdom to release the

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Jews, whatever, we're not given the intricate thoughts and thought processes and the advice and counsel and all the rest of that that he got from all of his counselors and advisors.

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We're not privy to any of that. What we are privy to is the fact that the

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Lord stirred this up. The Lord brought it about so that the prophecy that the

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Lord gave 70 years earlier by the mouth of Jeremiah the prophet would be fulfilled.

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That's the thing. So, keep that in mind when you're looking at world affairs and you're looking at the news, if you bother to look at the news, and listen to what these guys say, look at their actions and what they do, and realize that, and sometimes as difficult as it may be to come to this conclusion, that these guys are not into, they're not operating independently, as if there is not a

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God who is in control. No, there is a sovereign God who is in control. And I don't pretend for the moment to understand all that God is doing in working behind the scenes.

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We realize that there is warfare going on among the forces of the wicked one.

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We know that. We get insight from that in the book of Daniel and all the rest of that. But here's what we know.

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Here's what we can say with confidence. Our God is in control.

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Our God is the sovereign God. He moves kings and rulers and leaders of nations to speak, to make decisions, to issue decrees, to take courses of action that are according to his plan and according to his purposes, and they may not have a clue.

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Now Cyrus, as we go on to read what Cyrus decreed, Cyrus somehow came to understand that it was the

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God of heaven that had given him all the kingdoms of his reign, of his domain, and it was the

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God of heaven who commanded him to build the house at Jerusalem, which is in Judah. How he got that information, he doesn't tell us, but God communicated it to him.

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Joe Biden may not get that. Vladimir Putin may not understand that.

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President of China, Xi, he doesn't know. He doesn't perceive this. He has no clue that the decisions that he's making and the decrees he's issuing and so forth are under the sovereign control of God because God has a purpose for that decree.

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It's one that transcends our understanding and comprehension and is beyond our scope of gathering it all in.

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After all, who can understand the judgments in the mind of the Lord? Let's just rest our faith in him, knowing that he is in control.

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Let's not be fretful and fearful and wringing our hands in despair over the course of the things in this world.

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Let's instead trust in our sovereign God. We thank you, Father, for this insight into who you are, into your control, into your sovereignty.

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We thank you, Father, that our confidence is not in men, in those who sit in Congress or sit in the

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White House or sit in Moscow or anywhere, Beijing or anywhere.

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Our hope and our confidence is in you. May we trust you, our sovereign

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God. This we pray in Jesus' name. Amen. All right.