Isaiah Lesson 57

All right, let's open in a word of prayer. Lord, thank you so much for this opportunity to open your word, to hear your voice, and we pray that you would teach us from your scripture, and we pray that we would be refined and strengthened in the truth,

Lord, that you have given us to fight. And so, Lord, be with us now as we open your word, in Jesus' name, amen.

John Calvin said, our hearts are idol factories. Idol factories.

And by that, he meant that we can make an idol out of almost anything. Anything that we desire can begin to gain the place that God has in our lives and get out of sorts.

But Calvin said that from the perspective of a Reformed theologian who said, sola de gloria, right, all to the glory of God.

He was very focused on the glory of God, the transcendent God, and far be it from the

Reformers to make images and idols, right? Remember the iconoclasts in the

Reformation? They went smashing any kind of idol or relic, knocking out stained glass windows and busting up statues and relics of the past, yeah, often in the

Catholic Church. Well, the Reformers understood a high view of God.

Now, that didn't excuse vandalism of private property. That's not excusable.

But what they did understand is that an idol is nothing. It's just something made by hands, that people invest in that idol some kind of power to control things.

So in our understanding as evangelical Christians who have a worldview formed by the scripture, we're not prone to make physical idols, but we may be prone to make spiritual idols.

We could be so much a fan of football that we begin to idolize, you know, the advancement of a football down the field, and it becomes a thing that we are most interested in all week long.

Just can't wait till Sunday, not to worship the Lord, but to watch our favorite football team. Yeah, so our hearts become idol factories.

But it's also true in some parts of evangelicalism, but especially when you go outside of the truth of God's word that people today still do make idols.

If you were to go outside of the United States of America, let's say you went to India and observed

Hindus in their culture. They have a million gods, and they make idols to all of them.

They'll set up booths to worship them with burning incense and all kinds of things. What are they seeking to accomplish?

Well, they want to manipulate some spiritual power for their own benefit.

It's not a God -centered worship, a submission to God's will, it's trying to control deities or spirits or powers through some kind of incantation.

So Hindus do that. Did you know that a vast majority of Muslims are into what's called folk

Islam? Not the kind of Islam proper that you see in Saudi Arabia, but it's more of a folk

Islam that mixes in animism with the doctrines of Islam.

Is that Sikhism? A Sikh? No, I don't think that's exactly the same.

The Sufis might be more mystical. But many Muslims are into this. So if you were to go out into India or Indonesia or Northern Africa, you would find that the

Imams are often very much like shamans that perform all kinds of dark magic.

There was one guy I was reading named Rick Love who wrote, Muslims, Magic, and the Kingdom of God. And he describes when he went to North Africa, someone invited him into the home.

And this Muslim man had some dark magical powers. And he said, take that light bulb.

And right before his eyes, he smashed the light bulb and put it in his rice bowl and mixed it up.

And right before him, ate glass and it didn't even affect him. Just chewing and eating glass because he had some kind of mystical power.

How wonderful. Yeah. Dark and scary. And they do things like that. So there's this dark shaman -like element in folk

Islam. Mormonism, same thing. Did you know that when Joseph Smith was first looking for the golden plates, he had what was called a seer stone.

And he would take that stone and put it in his top hat and bury his face in to locate the position of hidden treasures.

He was a treasure hunter, but he did so with amulets and the occult, a seer stone.

That's where Mormonism came from. And to this day, Mormonism is very occultic. They have cultic handshakes and rituals in the temple, which they invest with a special power.

So it's common here, even in America. Of course, Catholicism. Has anybody ever been up to New York City and gone to that giant

Roman Catholic church near Broad Street? Anybody been down to...

I've seen it. You've seen it? I went in there one time. We were just on a sightseeing tour, so we just peeked in, and it makes you sick.

The smell of incense, the iconography, however you say it, iconography.

Everything is idolatrous. They have little stands set up with different places to go and manipulate

God by using this as a way to get favor from Him.

So it's in Catholicism. They have pilgrimages to places of relics.

If you go to Mexico City at a certain time of the year, you'll see people groveling on their knees for miles to get to a place where they think this apparition appeared of Mary, the

Virgin of Guadalupe. It's mysticism, and it's the making of idols.

Sadly, it also seeps its way into Protestant churches sometimes.

I know someone who was just recently telling me that her mother has an amulet, and she has convinced herself that it's like the umim and thumim of Scripture.

Remember how the high priest, Omi, the Goshen, he had this umim and thumim, which were some kind of stone or stick or something.

It's very mysterious. It's not something that we're told to emulate in any way. It's not prescriptive.

But descriptively, he would somehow consult that for decisions. Well, that was the case for a period of time, and I think as the prophets came into the monarchy, they were the voice of God to give direction to the king.

And so you see that fade out. You see one more reference of the umim and thumim when Ezra, the high priest, had those stones and made some decision in Ezra 2.

But after that, you don't see it again, and it's because God was only using that for a time to direct his people.

But what this woman does, this mother of someone who is sharing this with me, is it gives her up and down yes and no answers to questions.

She carries it in her pocket, and someone in the family will consult her, and she'll consult the umim and thumim in her pocket to make a yes or no decision.

It always has to be a binary, either black or white. I got something just like this called the Magic 8 -Ball.

The Magic 8 -Ball would be a great example. I've heard someone say that. Yeah. It's like a children's toy. They sell it as a children's toy. Yes.

Yeah. Absolutely. I once was in a parking lot and got a little flyer for one of those mediums in town, and I held on to it so I could pray for this woman, and one day

I'd like to go into her little medium place and preach the power of God, of Jesus Christ, to take authority over that, share the gospel with her.

I haven't done it yet, but one of the things that surprised me is

I was on a Facebook group, the Mount Laurel and surrounding towns Facebook group, and somebody said, hey, can you recommend a good medium?

And to my surprise, the thread underneath that question was a mile long.

Oh, yeah. Everybody had been to these various mediums in town, and they were saying who was better than the other, and all of these testimonies to the power of these witches.

It's common in Mount Laurel, New Jersey. Yeah. Common all over the country. It's common all over the country, and even more so as you get out into the countryside of northern

Africa and Indonesia. Our world is dominated by this folk

Islam or this mystical animistic view of the world, and here's what it comes down to.

People are afraid. They're afraid because they know something that's true, which is that they can't control life.

They can't prevent death. They can't force their husband to love them, and they want control, and so they turn to idols that they can control, and they try to manipulate deities or spirits, ancestor spirits or demons to control things that they can't.

It's very common. Isaiah 44 is about this. Another just weird anecdote that I just read from that same book.

Most Arabs, most Arab men, a vast majority of Arab men, you might want to plug your ears if you're squeamish, have drunk the urine of their wives.

Because the mystical practice is for women to pee into the drink of their husband to keep them devoted to them and not them running off to other women.

Oh, you guys are ready to go home now. Most Arabs, according to Rick Loves, it's like a love potion kind of thing.

It's somehow to control. Nothing says love like that. It says love like that.

Perfume. Well, it's disgusting, but it's just it's symptomatic of the world in which we live.

Christian, realize that your next door neighbor, although operating in the scientific

Western world, probably not as controlled as an Arabic housewife, is still afraid and is making idols to control things.

They pray to their deceased husband because they don't understand the

God who made them. They pray to ancestors.

It's very common. Unless you come to a biblical understanding of God, you will take this mystical, magical route to try to control spirits.

Nowadays, almost everybody will say, I'm spiritual. I'm not religious, by which they mean

I'm not going to be dictated what to believe and understand from some source outside of myself.

But I'm spiritual. Yeah, I'm spiritual. And often what they mean is they're kind of new age.

Yeah, it's a new age kind of thing. That's the dominant religiosity of our culture right here in Mount Laurel, right here in the surrounding towns.

Isaiah 44. Who's my first reader? One through five. So here we are with the trial of false gods.

So the Isaiah 40s are the trial of false gods where Yahweh holds himself up as the unique I am, the

Ego -A -Me, the Any -Who, the God who is who he is.

And he puts on trial every pretender, every supposed rival, and shows that they are not gods at all.

So the idols are on trial, the trial of false gods. So the first thing I'd like for us to see is that we who belong to Yahweh are recipients of his special love.

And because of this, because we're in covenant with the true God, we ought to be fearless.

We need not fear. Our anxieties can be put to rest because we're kept in him, in his love.

We know that he loves us and he is the all -powerful God. So we are safe in his love.

So that will be the starting point of this discussion. False gods don't love. What's that? False gods don't love. That's right.

A false god has no love, right? Allah, they say, is great, but they don't say Allah is love. Nowhere in the

Quran do you find Allah. And I don't know if you go up, but an 11 -year -old girl won a

Muslim to Christ. She said to him, if you can find one verse in the Quran that says, Allah loves me,

I'll be a Muslim. He couldn't find it, so he became converted. Wow, yeah, interesting.

I wouldn't have made that statement, but it's true. Allah is not a god of love.

Who would like to read 44, 1 through 5, please? We'll just start here and go left.

Go around this way. Thanks, Rob. But now hear, O Jacob, my servant, Israel, whom I have chosen.

Thus says the Lord who made you, who formed you from the womb, and will help you. Fear not, O Jacob, my servant,

Jerob, whom I have chosen. For I will pour water on the thirsty land and streams on the dry ground.

I will pour my spirit upon your offspring and my blessing on your descendants. They shall spring up among the grass like willows by flowing streams.

This one will say, I am the Lord's. Another will call on the name of Jacob, and another will write on his hand, the

Lord's, and name himself by the name of Israel. This is one of the classic texts of God's love and his treasuring his own people.

It says, but now hear, O Jacob, my servant, Israel, whom I have, what?

Chosen or loved. Thus says the Lord who made you, who formed you from the womb, and will help you.

Fear not, O Jacob, my servant, Jashua, whom I have chosen.

That term, Joshua, appears only in three other verses anywhere in the Old Testament.

But both of those, those three occurrences are all in two chapters, Deuteronomy 32 and 33. What is this term,

Joshua? As the Torah is rounding out the last very end of Torah, of the

Pentateuch. Yeah. The end of Deuteronomy, God begins to call

Jacob, Israel, Jashua. It means upright one, or as the

Septuagint translates it, it means beloved one. So it comes from the form of, in Greek, agape.

So remember, the Septuagint was the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible. And it used the word, a form of the word agape to arrive at this term,

Joshua. So what is it? It's a term of endearment. My loved one, my chosen one, my cherished one, my beloved one.

God speaks to his people in a term of endearment. And what follows confirms that because he says,

I will pour water on the thirsty land and streams on the dry ground. I will pour my spirit upon your offspring and my blessing on your descendants.

Now, Israel will not experience this in full until where, Rich? The millennium.

The millennium. Yes, because it will be a disobedient people. And the New Covenant promise,

Ezekiel 36, Jeremiah 31, is for Israel, but they reject. And so the

Gentiles are brought in, but God's not done dealing with his people. And in those last seven years of tribulation, and then in fulfillment, the thousand year reign of Christ, Israel will be the center of the earth, of the world, and of the reign of the

Christ. And they will experience his spirit poured out upon them.

Verse four, they shall spring up among the grass like willows. Who shall? The descendants, your children, your offspring.

This remnant that now is thriving like willows by the stream. They're springing up, just filling the earth.

And Israel, I was reading out one for Israel. They said that when Israel as a country in 1948 was founded, there were 30 confessing believers,

Israelites, in Christ. Today, there's over 30 ,000. 30 ,000 in Israel.

In Israel. And worldwide, it's probably seven. They're in the midst of really growing fast.

Praise God. One for Israel. What a great ministry. This one will say, I am the

Lord's. Another will call on the name of Jacob. And another will write on his hand, the

Lord's. And name himself by the name of Israel. Now, the church is derivative from Israel.

We're grafted in. So there's a sense in which, as those grafted in, the church also can claim this promise.

I, as a father, hold on to this promise. And a similar one in Isaiah 54, 54 verse 17.

And in 57, there's a similar statement.

Again and again, you'll see through the scriptures. Chapter 59, verse 21. Let me just read 59, 21.

As for me, this is my covenant with them, says the Lord. My spirit that is upon you and my words that I have put in your mouth shall not depart out of your mouth.

I claim that for myself, that I will be preaching this gospel to the day I die or out of the mouth of your offspring.

Or out of the mouth of your children's offspring, says the Lord from this time forth and forevermore.

I have wept over this passage. Just the beauty of that promise to say that there is a sense in which it applies not just to Israel, but to the grafted in church.

That my children will praise the same God that I worship, the true

God. And their children will, too, all the way until the coming of Christ and then forevermore.

So what you see in 44, three is this promise on your offspring, your descendants.

Let's pray this over them. Let's say, Lord, you have a blessing on the descendant of the believer.

And Lord, let not any of our children be lost or any of our grandchildren. Let them praise you.

Open their eyes. And sometimes we don't see it in reality for a time. There's the prodigal walk.

But we never stop praying this over them until the Lord brings back the prodigal.

Until one day they take a pen and they write on their hand, the

Lord's, as I just did on mine. The Lord's.

Write it over your hand. It belonged to him. This hand belongs to him. This heart, this life is his.

Until my children do that, which they do. And all of our children. This is the promise here.

This is the joy and the peace that we have that our God would do this. To write the

Lord's on our hand and on our lips to say, I belong to him. He is my

God. Yahweh. Declaim the name of Yahweh. What a beautiful start to this passage.

It's kind of like the start to 43. Remember 43. But now says the Lord who created you.

Oh, Jacob, who formed you? Oh, Israel, fear not for I have redeemed you.

I have called you by name. You are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you.

And through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you. When you walk through fire, you shall not be burned.

And the flame shall not consume you. Beautiful promise here.

Let's read 6 to 8. OK, so now we realize that we should expect to see

God's salvation. Therefore, we're not to fear. God is a savior. He's Yahweh.

Yeshua, Jesus, means Yahweh is salvation. We're not afraid. We have that.

So let's read then about any potential threat to that. Is there any threat to Yahweh who saves us?

And there's none. So, Rich, would you read 6 to 8? Thus says the

Lord, the King of Israel, and his Redeemer, the Lord of hosts. I am the first and I am the last.

Beside me there is no God. And who can proclaim as I do?

Then let him declare it and set it in order for me.

Since I appointed the ancient people and the things that are coming and shall come, let them show these to them.

Do not fear nor be afraid. Have I not told you from that time and declared it?

You are my witnesses. Is there a God besides me? Indeed, there is no other rival.

I know not one. Amen. Here is

God proclaiming that he has no rival. Who is like me?

Therefore, if there's no rival, what have you to fear? If he is for us, who could be against us?

If neither height nor depth nor angels nor principalities nor things present nor things to come nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus.

What have we to fear? There's no rival. Who is like me, says the Lord of hosts.

Now in verse 6, he's called the King of Israel and his Redeemer. Which, the way that actually reads in the

Hebrew, the King James and the ESV and the NAS pick up on and some other translations don't.

It seems to separate that by the conjunction and, that it's referring to father and son.

Thus says the Lord the King of Israel and his Redeemer, the Lord of hosts.

I like the way the ESV picked that up. In either case, if you're referring to God as Yahweh in the essence of his being, he is both

King and Lord, Redeemer and King. So, it could apply however you read it, but I like the way the

ESV picked it with the word and there to separate that this could refer to two persons, father and son.

The Redeemer being Christ. I am the first and the last. Besides me, there is no

God. Is Jesus a different God than the Father?

No, one God, one essence, one being. There's a distinction in personhood, the who, but there's only one what.

One being, one essence of who, of God. And that is Yahweh, the

Lord. There is no other God besides the one true God who identifies himself as Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Who is like me? Let him proclaim it. Let him declare and set it before me since I appointed an ancient people.

Let them declare what is to come and what will happen.

What is the test of the true God? Knowing the future, prophesying.

Yeah, prophecy. And that's seen in Deuteronomy 13, Deuteronomy 18, and here again and again in the trial of false gods.

God says, you'll know me because I tell the end from the beginning. I declare it ahead of time, then

I bring it to pass. And so we see it here. The false gods can't do that.

And the false prophets will be identified by their false prophecies. Verse 8, fear not, nor be afraid.

Have I not told you from of old and declared it? Again, once again, over and over in the scripture we're told, fear not.

It's the second time now in 44. We saw it all the way up in verse 2, fear not,

O Jacob. And now again, verse 8, fear not, nor be afraid. Well, why should we not be afraid?

God has no rival. He said that he's for you, you're his chosen. He has you in the palm of his hand, so there's no rival that can snatch him out.

Nothing can snatch one of his sheep out of his hand. So we are safe, we're secure. He loves us.

Yeah. And we can rest in his sovereign plan. And so the

Christian can sit secure no matter what's happening in life because the God over all has decreed the end from the beginning.

And he is working all things together for our good. All things, Romans 8, 28. We don't need to control things.

We don't need amulets in our pocket. We don't need to go to little altars and light incense and try to control spirits.

We don't need to ask for our dead relative to help us find our keys. Yeah, or take a trip or pray to Mary.

Or use beads, rosary beads. That's the kind of idolatry that now comes squarely into view.

Who would like to read? Why don't you just read the whole thing, 9 to 20? Because now the trial of false gods becomes irenic.

It becomes polemic. A strong verbal attack against the gods of the nation.

In fact, I would describe this as mockery. God will actually mock the false gods and those who would make them and rely on them.

He holds them in derision. And it's a rhetorical device that's meant to pull people away.

It's actually loving that God would do this. It's loving. It's a form of love.

So who would like to read this? I got it. It's a long one, 9 through 20.

Just get the full swoop of this. How he brings the hammer down on this nonsense. All who make idols are nothing, and the things they treasure are worthless.

Those who would speak up for them are blind. They are ignorant to their own shame. Who shapes a god and casts an idol, which can profit him nothing?

He and his kind would be put to shame. Craftsmen are nothing but men. Let them all come together and take their stand.

They will be brought down to terror and infamy. The blacksmith takes a tool and works with it in the coals.

He shapes an idol with hammers. He forges it with the might of his arm. He gets hungry and loses his strength.

He drinks no water and grows faint. The carpenter measures with a line and makes an outline with a marker.

He roughs it out with chisels and marks it with compasses. He shapes it in the form of man, of man in all his glory, that it may dwell in a shrine.

He cut down cedars or perhaps took a cypress or oak. He let it grow among the trees in the forest or planted a pine, and the rain made it grow.

It is man's fuel for burning. Some of it he takes and warms himself. He kindles a fire and bakes bread.

But he also fashions a god and worships it. He makes an idol and bows down to it.

Half of the wood he burns in the fire. Over it he prepares his meal. He roasts his meat and eats his fill.

He also warms himself and says, Ah, I am warm, I see the fire. From the rest he makes a god, his idol.

He bows down to it and worships. He prays to it and says, Save me, you are my god.

They know nothing. They understand nothing. Their eyes are plastered over so they cannot see. And their minds closed so they cannot understand.

No one stops to think. No one has the knowledge or understanding to say, Half of it I use for fuel.

I even bake bread over its coals. I roasted meat and I ate. Shall I make a detestable thing from what is left?

Shall I bow down to a block of wood? He feeds on ashes. A deluded heart misleads him.

He cannot save himself or say, Is not this thing in my right hand a lie? Wow. That's a fun passage.

Very interesting. So in 9 to 11, he's sort of like calling them to assemble in order to put them to shame.

That they would repent, that they would come to saving faith, we know. But in verse 12, he begins to kind of recount what they're doing and say,

Can you just step out of yourself for a minute and observe what you're actually doing here? The ironsmith takes a cutting stool and works over the coals.

He fashions it with hammers and works at it with his strong arm. And then at the end of verse 12, he becomes hungry.

And his strength fails. He drinks no water and is faint. It's just this human work. And the guy's getting tired while he's making something that's supposedly a god.

The carpenter stretches a line. He marks it out with a pencil. He shapes it with planes and marks it with a compass.

He shapes it into the figure of a man with the beauty of a man to dwell in a house.

That's interesting. Very often idols are made in human form. Right? Why? Men want to be gods.

Men want to be gods. Yeah. Bringing God down, exchanging.

Romans 1, exchanging the glory of God for things made. Ultimately, man is in the image of God.

And the closest expression to what we can see of God. Bearing the image of God. And yet we're fallen and we're mere creatures.

We're meant to be the image of God. And so they make an image of God and begin to worship that.

So idols are often fashioned in the form of a man. A mere man. He cuts down cedars.

He plants a cedar. He doesn't realize it's only that God is making the rain fall on the just and the unjust alike that these trees grow.

There's a God that all this points to. He's doing all this.

Verse 15. Then it becomes fuel for a man. He takes a part of it and warms himself.

So, okay, he cuts down the tree. And he realizes it's just wood because he's burning this wood over here.

And he's warming his hands. Okay, back to work. On the same wood that you just burned as nothing.

You warmed your hands over here. And now you're going to grab your hammer again and start making your God. It's the folly that he's mocking.

He kindles a fire. He makes a God and worships it. He makes it an idol and falls down before it.

Half of it, he burns in the fire. Over the half, he eats meat. He roasted and he's satisfied.

He warms himself and says, aha, I am warm. I have seen the fire. And the rest of it, he makes it to a

God. Can you imagine the folly of making anything an idol?

Votie Bachum was asked by a social justice warrior. Will you denounce the white

Jesus paintings that people have in their house? Because Jesus would not have had such a light complexion.

Votie Bachum said, I denounce making any pictures of Jesus.

White, black, or any color. Because the second commandment says, don't make a graven image. I don't care what color of skin.

It's all nonsense. Don't make an image. It's not what he looked like. You don't have an image of him.

In fact, the only thing we know about his physical appearance is from Isaiah 50. We'll see. He had no form or comeliness that we would desire in him.

Yeah, I don't know that the Shroud of Turin is. It's very interesting. I've looked at it. There's some that think it couldn't show his face, but I'm not convinced of that.

Interesting is about as far as I can get. Yeah, interesting is as far as I'll take it to. It can't be duplicated.

That's unusual. Yeah, well. But anyway, I'm reading a book about it. You got a book on the

Shroud of Turin? Yeah, and I saw a special. In any case, there's a danger with that. Do you remember when they made a snake?

Nehushtan. Nehushtan. They formed it and Moses lifted it up. And that was good and godly because God told him to do it.

But then they turned that golden snake into an idol. There's a danger with the Shroud of Turin that people would begin to go to that.

And it would become the Nehushtan to that. Well, that's Catholicism. That's Roman Catholicism. Okay, so then let's read on.

He begins to pray and look at verse 17. Deliver me for you are my

God. Why is he making an idol? To manipulate and control.

It's a power thing. Trying to control. If I have this idol, I can then appeal to it.

And it will bring blessing to me. It will ward off the evil spirits. It will give me fertility.

It will do whatever it is that the person wants it to do. Do you see how idolatry works?

It's all about power and control of the spiritual realm. And of unseen things.

So verse 17, deliver me. He's praying to a block of wood. 18 to 20. For they know not, nor do they discern.

For he has shut their eyes so that they cannot see. And their hearts so that they cannot understand. Discernment is the missing spiritual gift in our day.

In 1 Corinthians 12, we see discernment as one of the gifts of the spirit. In Hebrews 5 .14,

it says train the powers of your discernment. So that you will be able to recognize right from wrong.

Here, these have no discernment. No one considers, nor is there knowledge or discernment to say, half of it

I've burned in the fire. I also baked bread on its coals. I roasted meat and have eaten.

And shall I make the rest of it an abomination? Shall I fall down before a block of wood?

He feeds on ashes. You might as well just eat the ashes of that fire you just made.

That's about how much nourishment you're going to get from this. It's an emptiness. It's folly.

Is there not a lie in my right hand? So there you see how the nations, and not just out there at the ends of the earth, where they do folk

Islam and magic and animism and stuff, but right here at your next door neighbor, they try to manipulate the spiritual world rather than submitting to the true

God, who's the maker of all things. So then lastly, in 21 to 28, here we are over against them.

We are loved by the true God. He has promised to care for us and to bless us and to our children and their children.

We can rest in His promises. We don't need to control things. So what's left for us to do?

Tomorrow's a great day to do this. Thanksgiving. What's left is rejoicing.

We are not afraid. Instead, we're filled with joy. We have gratitude. He is for us.

What could be against us? So 21 to 28. Ivan, would you like to read that? Sure.

Remember these things, O Jacob. In Israel for you are my servant. I have formed you.

You are my servant, O Israel. You will not be forgotten by me. I have wiped out your transgressions like a thick cloud and your sins like a heavy mist.

Return to me, for I have redeemed you. Shout for joy, O heavens, for the Lord has done it.

Shout joyfully, you lower parts of the earth. Break forth into the shout of joy, you mountains,

O forest, and every tree in it. For the Lord has redeemed Jacob, and in Israel He shows forth

His glory. Thus says the Lord, your Redeemer, the one who formed you from the womb,

I, the Lord, and the maker of all things, stretching out the heavens by myself and spreading out the earth all alone, causing the omens of boasters to fail, making fools out of the diviners, causing wise men to draw back and turning their knowledge into foolishness, confirming the word of His servant and performing the purpose of His messenger.

It is I who says of Jerusalem, She shall be inhabited, and of the cities of Judah, they shall be built.

And I will raise up her ruins again. It is I who says to the depths of the sea,

Be dried up, and I will make your rivers dry. It is I who says of Cyrus, He is my shepherd, and he will perform all my desire.

And he declares of Jerusalem, She is built, and of the temple, your foundation will be laid.

So, yeah, we'll get to that in just a second. So there is the big picture here.

He is showing Himself to be the creator of all. He has no rival. He does this.

He stretches out all things in the heavens by Himself. He alone is

God, absolutely sovereign over all things. He brings to pass everything that He says

He will do. His counsel, His messengers, what they say comes to pass.

Absolute sovereign over all things. How does He know what will come to pass?

He knows it because He has decreed it. Yeah, and we see this earlier in chapter 41, verse 26.

Look at this real quick. 41, 26. Who declared it from the beginning that we might know and beforehand that we might say

He is right? There was none who declared it, none who proclaimed, none who heard your words.

It was God alone who from the beginning said what would come to pass. Look, flip a page to 42, 9.

Behold, the former things have come to pass, and new things I now declare. Before they spring forth,

I tell you of them. Here's how you know who the true God is. He declares things before they come to pass.

Again, 42, verse 23. Who among you will give ear to this, will attend and listen for the time to come?

And then in 44, 7, we'd already seen. I might have miscited that.

Everyone who is called by my name. Oh, sorry, verse 9.

Halfway through verse 9. Who among them can declare this and show us the former things? Let them bring their witnesses to prove them right and let them hear and say it is true.

So we have God here, I guess, just more declaring what has happened in the past and giving the purpose for it behind that.

And 44, 7. What is it in 44? Oh, I'm at 43. I was trying to figure out why it wasn't lining up right.

I had to turn the page. Would you read 44, 7 for us? That doesn't look right. Who is like me?

Let him proclaim it. Let him declare and set it before me. Since I appointed an ancient people, let them declare what is to come and what will happen.

Right. Couldn't get any more clear than that. Thank you. Good help me out. So, here's how you know the one true

God. He is able to foretell the future. And now we get to Rich's point.

At the end of it, he gives us an amazing example. Who says of Cyrus, he is my shepherd.

At least 150 years. So, Babylon falls to the

Persians in 539 BC. And the

Israelites then receive the decree. The beginning of Ezra 1, the end of 2nd Chronicles.

Cyrus tells the Jews that they get to go back to their homeland and rebuild the temple. And Isaiah is writing the 700s.

This might be 710. Somewhere in that range. So, we're talking 150 years at least.

Before Cyrus. Before Cyrus. Well, Cyrus is born in 600 BC. So, he still won't be born for more than 100 years.

And yet, Isaiah just named him. Now, Josephus tells a story. In the first century, the

Jewish historian Josephus says, in the first year of the reign of Cyrus, which was the 70th year from the day that our people were removed out of the land of Babylon.

Just like Jeremiah had foretold. God commiserated the captivity and calamity of these poor people according as he had foretold to them by Jeremiah the prophet.

That it would be 70 years before the destruction of the city. That after they had served

Nebuchadnezzar and his posterity, and after they had undergone that servitude 70 years, he would restore them again to the land of their fathers.

And they should build their temple and enjoy their ancient prosperity.

Now, listen to this. And these things God did afford them for he stirred up the mind of Cyrus and made him write this throughout all

Asia. Thus saith Cyrus the king, since God almighty hath appointed me to be king of the habitable earth,

I believe that he is that God which the nation of the Israelites worship. For indeed, he foretold my name by the prophets, and that I should build him a house at Jerusalem in the country of Judea.

This was known to Cyrus by his reading the book which Isaiah left behind him of his prophecies.

For this prophet said that God had spoken thus to him in a secret vision. My will is that Cyrus, whom

I have appointed to be king over many of the great nations, send back my people to their own land and build my temple.

This was foretold by Isaiah 140 years before the temple was demolished.

Accordingly, when Cyrus read this and admired the divine power, an earnest desire and ambition seized upon him to fulfill what was so written.

So he called for the most eminent Jews that were in Babylon and said to them that he gave them leave to go back to their own country and to rebuild their city

Jerusalem and the temple of God, for that he would be their assistant and that he would write to the rulers and governors that were in the neighborhood of their country of Judea, that they should contribute to them gold and silver for the building of the temple, and besides that, beasts for their sacrifices.

Now into chapter 45, we see Isaiah's prophecy will continue about Cyrus, so we'll get to that next week and we'll talk more about this, but just see what just happened.

God wrote it ahead of time through Isaiah, so when Cyrus encountered this, it stirred him up to fulfill the prophecy and not only did he send them back, he told people that's why they were given all that money, the silver and gold, to go back and rebuild the temple.

God prophetically used Isaiah to tell what was going to happen, so here Cyrus is called my shepherd.

Now interestingly, in 45 .1, he'll be called his anointed, which is Messiah, but I don't know if he got saved, but the point will be the providential plan of God to use him, maybe he got saved, he at least confesses that Yahweh is the true

God, but then if you see what he does with Marduk later and all the other, he kind of basically gives homage to whatever the local deities are, so that's why

I'm not convinced that he's genuinely saved, but in any case, God providentially is using him to send the people back after the 70 year captivity.

So in closing, after all of that, listen, our

God is the true God. He sovereignly reigns over everything and whatsoever comes to pass.

He knows the end from the beginning because he is the one who has decreed all that comes to pass.

So we have nothing to fear. We should be confident in God and recognize because he has no rival, there's nothing that can thwart his plan.

So our part should be to sing and shout for joy, to give thanks, to be confident in our

God. His victory is sure. He says, Sing, O heavens, for the Lord has done it. Shout, O depths of the earth.

Break forth into singing, O mountains, O forest, and every tree in it.

If you have an amulet, something in your pocket that you consult for good luck or turn in your fingers to bring you a blessing, if you have a little idol in your house, bring it out and burn it.

If you have any kind of witchcraft that you're involved with, a Ouija board or something to control things, if you have merry beads, destroy it.

In Acts 19, when Paul brought the true gospel, they created a bonfire and they burnt millions of dollars worth of magic books.

As Christians, it's no part of us. And those who go to those things are mocked in Isaiah 44.

So anybody listening to the video, if you have been practicing those things, turn away from idols to the true and living

God. Let's pray. So Father, we thank you for Isaiah 44. And it's really interesting to see how you even mock those who make idols.

But ultimately, it's because you love and you desire all people to repent and come to a knowledge of the truth.

You call people to repentance and faith. And so, Lord, we come. And today we confess again, you are

God. There is no other. You have no rival. And we shout and we sing for joy.

How great thou art. All of the heavens and earth proclaim your power.