Sermon for Lord's Day October 29, 2023 pt3 Ezra 1:1b-4

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Sermon for Lord's Day October 29, 2023 pt3 Ezra 1:1b-4

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Our Heavenly Father, as we come before Your throne again, as we sing in that last song, we praise
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You, Father, we praise You, Son, we praise You, Holy Spirit, three in one. We thank
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You, O God, for Your great work of salvation that You have worked and wrought about.
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Thank You, Lord, for the joy of knowing You. Thank You, Lord, for the witness of Your Holy Spirit.
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Thank You for the testimony of Your truth. We thank You, O God, today as we're going to continue to read about and continue to see.
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We thank You, God, for Your sovereignty over creation and Your providential working in and through creation itself.
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God, I thank You and I praise You today. As we sang those songs, how it thrilled my heart, dear
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God, to hear these children as well as the adults lifting up their voice in praise unto
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You. Dear God, it is an honor and a privilege truly to be in Your house today.
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We pray as we worship You in the preaching and the teaching of Your word that You would show us
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Christ in the scriptures, that You would cause us, dear God, to have a greater and a better understanding of who
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You are so that in order that we might worship and love
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You all the more. Lord, our prayer is this. For those who hear the word today, that the lost would be saved, that the saint would be encouraged.
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I'd ask You as well one more time, Lord, please help me not to be in the way or to be in obstruction to anyone seeing the grace and the truth of God as we stand today.
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Please, Lord, give me clarity in my thoughts, liberty with my mouth that we might speak forth the word of life today and that You would get glory, honor, and praise in all things today.
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For it is in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Stand with us if you would,
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Ezra chapter 1, we're going to be reading verses 1 -4.
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These are the words of the living God. In the first year of Cyrus, king of Persia, that the word of the
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Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah might be fulfilled, the Lord stirred up the spirit of Cyrus, king of Persia, so that he made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom and also put it in writing.
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The writing says, thus says Cyrus, king of Persia, the
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Lord, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth, and he has charged me to build him a house at Jerusalem, which is in Judah.
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Whoever is among you of all his people, may his God be with him and let him go up to Jerusalem which is in Judah and rebuild the house of the
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Lord, the God of Israel. He is the God who is in Jerusalem.
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And let each survivor, in whatever place he sojourns, be assisted by the men of his place with silver and gold, with goods and with beasts, beside freewill offerings for the house of God that is in Jerusalem.
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Thus far as the reading of God's holy word, you may be seated. If you are taking notes, you can just put a continuation of last week's message.
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Really, because our aim and our goal today will be the same as it was last week.
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It will be the same for the next several weeks. Our aim and our goal is to demonstrate from the text of the scripture, number one, that the
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Lord is sovereign over all of his creation. He is sovereign over all of his creation, including lost and saved, believers and unbelievers.
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This is number one, what we are striving to demonstrate from the text of scripture. Number two, what we want to demonstrate is this, that God, by his providence, or sometimes that term providence is used, given without a qualification, to define providence.
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Providence is God's governance of his creation, how he functions within his creation.
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So we want to demonstrate that God, by his providence in creation, that he does meticulously cause all things whatsoever to come to pass.
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And yet, very important here, and yet he is not the author of evil.
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He is not the author of evil. We are going to see in the text today who the
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Lord is, who the Lord is and what he did to bring about his blessing on his people, to bring them out of the captivity that they themselves put themselves in because of their idolatry and their sin.
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We are going to see how God blessed them. All this, all this to the end, all this to the extent to pave the way for his dear son to come into this world so that Jesus, Jesus Christ, the only begotten son of God, in due time, would descend that sacred stairway, so to speak, entering into this world through the womb of the virgin.
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And he lived the life that we cannot live. He died the death that we cannot die.
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And he rose again on the third day so that in order that on this day, on this
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October 29th, 2023, that we can stand and proclaim to you, whoever hears today, that you, whosoever will, may come and take of the water of life freely and that you may be saved.
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We have this privilege and this opportunity to declare to you that Jesus saves,
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Jesus saves. So as we look at the text, last week we looked at the first part of verse one.
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So we might say 1 1a. What we're going to do this morning really is give an exposition of 1b, the second part of this text is what we want to focus on.
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And you'll notice in the text, as we read from verse one again, in the first year of King of Persia, that the word of the
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Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah might be fulfilled. The scripture says the Lord stirred up the spirit of Cyrus, King of Persia.
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And he did so, so that Cyrus made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom.
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And also he put it in writing. So let's little by little go through this text as we exegete this.
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And remember, what we're doing in these next several weeks really is just building kind of a base camp, if you would, a foundation for us to understand how impactful, how necessary and how important the sermons of Zechariah and Haggai were in this period of time.
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Do you remember how long this book of Ezra spans? Some 90 to 120 years is the time span that this book is going to cover.
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But as we look here at the beginning, notice what is meant, I would ask this, what is meant by the phrase, the
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Lord stirred up the spirit of Cyrus. And to ask a second question, who is this
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Lord that we read about in the text? Who is this
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Lord? And what does it mean that he stirred up the spirit of Cyrus? So to define who this
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Lord is, we need not go anywhere else, but to the text of scripture. And we have a particular text of scripture that not only tells us who the
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Lord is, but gives us another foreshadowing and another prophecy that points to the work that God is doing here in the book of Ezra.
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If you turn to Isaiah chapter 45, Isaiah chapter 45 verses one through seven, hundreds of years before we read in Ezra, this is what the word of the
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Lord said in the prophet Isaiah. The prophet Isaiah said in Isaiah 45 verses one through seven, quoting the
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Lord, thus says the Lord to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand
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I have grasped to subdue nations before him and to lose the belts of Kings, to open doors before him that gates may not be closed.
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And please pay careful attention to this. Take time this week to go back in to read and to reread and to examine this text because it is so rich with the sovereignty and the providence of God.
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He goes on to say, I will go before you and level the exalted places.
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I will break in pieces the doors of bronze and I will cut through the bars of iron.
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I will give you the treasures of darkness and the hordes in secret places that you may know that it is the
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Lord, the God of Israel who called you by your name.
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He goes on for the sake of my servant, Jacob and Israel, my chosen.
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I call you by your name. And it is as if it is, it is in this prophecy where the
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Lord, the word of the Lord is spending time and making a direct speech to Cyrus to inform him that what he does is not by his own will, nor by his own power, nor by his own strength, but that it is the mighty hand of God at work.
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Going further, he said, know this. I call you by name though you do not know me.
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Very important there. I am the Lord and there is no other beside me.
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There is no God. I equip you though you do not know me so that people may know from the rising of the sun and from the
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West that there is none beside me. I am the
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Lord and there is no other. I form life and create darkness.
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I make well -being and create calamity. I am the
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Lord who does all these things.
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The Lord, the Lord, when you see this word L -O -R -D in all caps in your
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Bibles, that is intentional. That is in the Hebrew there to designate and to denote that you are reading about Yahweh, the eternal self -existent
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God, the first cause of all things, the creator of the heavens and the earth.
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And what does he say here in this prophecy pointing to Cyrus? He reminds
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Cyrus that when Cyrus does all that he does, which is what we're going to read about when
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Cyrus does all that he does, it's by God's own hand that he's doing it.
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It's by the mighty power of God. So who is the Lord?
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The Lord is Yahweh. The Lord is Yehovah, the great, the mighty, the self -existent eternal one.
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Moving forward in the text, let's notice a few other things. So the Lord stirred up Cyrus, right?
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And not only did he stir up Cyrus, but it says he stirred up particularly the spirit of Cyrus.
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So we know who did the stirring. That was the Lord. And so what does it mean to be stirred up?
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So first of all, first of all, the scripture itself is plain in saying that the
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Lord stirred up the spirit of Cyrus. And that's why the why, why he stirred up Cyrus is important as well.
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Why did the Lord stir up Cyrus? Why did the Lord do this work?
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And the answer is here in our text. Why did the Lord stir up Cyrus, the king of Persia?
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So that the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah might be fulfilled.
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That God would demonstrate that once again, that he is sovereign over all creation and that God by his providence governs all creation.
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Remember last week means and ends. God's means is his creation.
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His ends is his goal. God uses creation to achieve the ends, which ultimately, which we'll get to this, which ultimately is bringing him his one and only son into this world, that the world might have a propitiation for their sins here in the text.
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Why? Why? The scripture says that the word that the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah might be fulfilled.
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If you would turn to Jeremiah chapter 29, Jeremiah chapter 29, again, hundreds of years before what we're reading here in Israel, the word of the
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Lord comes to the prophet Jeremiah in Jeremiah chapter 29 and beginning in we'll read verse one and then we'll read verses four through 14.
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The word of God says this. These are the words of the letter that Jeremiah, the prophet sent from Jerusalem to the surviving elders of the exiles and to the priests, the prophets and all the people who
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Nebuchadnezzar had taken into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon.
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Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel to all the exiles who might sit into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon.
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And this is the word of the Lord to them, build houses and live in them, plant gardens and eat their produce, take wives and have sons and daughters, take wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage that they may bear sons and daughters, multiply there and do not decrease, but seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile and pray to the
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Lord on its behalf for in its welfare, you will find your welfare.
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For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, do not let your prophets and your diviners who are among you deceive you.
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Do not let your prophets and your diviners deceive you and do not listen to the dreams that they dream for it is a lie that they are prophesying to you in my name.
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I did not send them, declares the Lord. Very important here. So there were prophets and dreamers and deceitful teachers running around saying, oh, beforehand that it's going to be all peace, peace, but the
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Lord rebuked them. Woe unto him who says peace, peace, for there is no peace coming, but destruction is what is coming.
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It was not a popular message. Nonetheless, it was the truth. But notice what the
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Lord goes on to say. Thus says the Lord when 70 years are completed for Babylon, I will visit you and I will fulfill to you my promise and bring you back to this place.
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Here we see the hope. I will bring you back to this place for I know the plans
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I have for you declares the Lord plans for welfare and not for evil to give you a future and a hope.
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Then you will call upon me. Then you will pray to me and I will hear you.
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You will seek me and you will find me when you seek me with all of your heart.
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I will be found by you, declares the Lord, and I will restore fortunes and gather you from all nations and all the places where I've driven you, declares the
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Lord, and I will bring you back to the place from which I sent you into exile.
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Can you see how that the Lord in his sovereignty by means of his providence is working all things that whatsoever come to pass here?
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Again, we are not talking about something that just happened in the span of a 24 hour time frame or a one month time frame or a one year time frame.
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We see hundreds of years where the word of the Lord has been perfectly fulfilled to the job and to the title.
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This is amazing. What does this do? This should cause us to worship God. This should cause us to look unto the
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Lord, our God, and to understand that we truly can trust him for our lives are in his hands.
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We sang that song when you remember when you were a little child. He's got the whole world in his hands.
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Well, that's the truth. If children and adults both understood the depth of theology in that song, my goodness, it would cause us to make us want to shout and rejoice.
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The whole world is in his hands. What we have here in Jeremiah is a message of hope.
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What we have is the old song says, Pardon for sin and a peace that endureth, Thine own near presence to cheer and to guide.
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What we have is strength for today and a bright hope tomorrow. Blessings all mine and 10 ,000 beside.
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Why? Because great is thy faithfulness. Great is thy faithfulness.
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Morning by morning new mercies I see. So, concerning that, so we have who and what, who is the
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Lord? The Lord is Yahweh, the eternal self -existent God, as we see him himself telling us in Isaiah's passage.
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In Jeremiah, we see the word of the Lord that was to be fulfilled, that is being fulfilled here in the book of Ezra.
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So, we have that great message of hope. Now, let's look a little bit deeper here at Cyrus, the king of Persia and see not only through the biblical text, but history itself, how history itself glorifies and magnifies
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God and it demonstrates that history, all of time and all of space is subject to the will of God.
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Cyrus reigned in Persia as we gave you some dates last week and we're still going to make them approximate dates, approximately from 560 to 530
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BC. So, approximately for some 30 years, could be 20, 30, could be 30, 40.
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Nevertheless, let's look at a brief historical account now of how
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Cyrus came to his kingship. We don't necessarily have the step -by -step how
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Cyrus came to his kingship in the scriptures, but we do have it in history and what history does is attest to the truth of the scriptures.
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So, the historical account goes like this. At the time, and I have greatly summarized this because I figured that most of you really would not be interested in a lot, like four pages of history on King Cyrus.
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So, I did my best to summarize this and the history is like this. At the time of Cyrus, at the time of Cyrus's birth, actually, which is likely probably somewhere around 583,
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Osteogus ruled the Medes. So, we know Cyrus was the king of the Persians, right?
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Osteogus ruled the Medes. Now, what is interesting about Osteogus is that what
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Osteogus did during his rule as Medes, he gave his own daughter to a
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Persian prince and this Persian prince's name was Cambyses. Now, you say, so what?
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Well, Cambyses's father was Cyrus I. So, what happened was shortly after Osteogus gave his daughter to marry
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Cyrus I's son, to marry him, she became pregnant with a child.
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Osteogus did not know this, but what Osteogus had done, he had had a series of dreams that warned him that the child that his own daughter and Cambyses was going to have was going to be a ruler over all the nations, even the nations that he possessed.
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So, the first thing he did at this time because of superstition, he thought he would step into action and he determined he would bring his daughter home and when his daughter came home after she delivered that child, he would have the child killed so that that child could not be ruler over the nations as he had these dreams about.
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So, nevertheless, the child was born in 583 BC. Shortly after the child was born,
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Osteogus ordered his servant, his servant's name was Harpagus, he ordered
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Harpagus to take the child out anywhere and just leave the child to die.
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However, Harpagus, he was plagued with a conscience.
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He could not in good conscience kill a child of royalty he knew to be an heir to the throne.
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So, what he did is Harpagus took the child, or I'm sorry, Harpagus, he couldn't leave the child to die, so he called for one of his servants, basically one of his herdsmen.
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Now, his herdsman name was Mitrodates. Again, these names, you can or cannot remember them, it doesn't matter, but the point is this is historical fact.
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Harpagus, because he was plagued with conscience, couldn't do this to the child, so he called one of his herdsmen,
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Mitrodates, and said, I want you to do this. Mitrodates took the child to his own home and as Mitrodates arrived at his own home, his wife had just given birth to her stillborn child.
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So, the wife of Mitrodates begged Mitrodates, because Mitrodates told her what the plan was, the wife begged
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Mitrodates, Mitrodates said, or the wife of him said, please, let's keep the living child and raise this child as our own child.
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And Mitrodates thought to himself, aha, I can still not be in trouble. So, what he did, he took his dead child and he presented the dead child to Harpagus, so Harpagus could present the child to Ostalgus as though they had done all that they had been commissioned to do.
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But brothers and sisters, this was an act of the sovereignty and the providence of God, keeping even this
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Gothic king in the line of his succession. What they did, what they did not know, they had no idea that the child that they were raising would one day be named
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Cyrus the Great. And that is who we are reading about here in the book of Ezra.
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That is who we are reading about. And this is how the Lord providentially ensured his divine will.
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So, we see how the Lord preserved the line so that Cyrus could come back, because you must know this today,
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God cannot lie. Why? Because he is truth.
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God cannot be dark because he is light. God cannot be imperfect because he is perfect.
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He cannot be unrighteous because he is righteous. He is all of those things.
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So, whenever, as we consider how the Lord stirred up Cyrus, whenever you read any promise in the scripture, remember whose bond it is.
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William Gurnall, one of the old Puritans said this, it is none other than the word of God.
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When you think of God, be sure that you do not confine him with the little compass of your finite apprehensions.
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But conceive of him always as an infinite being whose center is everywhere.
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His circumference is nowhere. And he said, and I love this, and when you have raised your thoughts to the highest, then know that you are still yet as far, even infinitely farther from reaching his glory and his immensity than you are as a man is climbing up on a mountain to touch the sun.
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We will never reach that zenith, that pinnacle. So, the Lord stirred up, the word in the
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Hebrew here, it means to stir, it means to rouse, it means to incite.
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So, what the Lord did in stirring up the spirit of Cyrus was that he roused him up.
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He incited him to do these actions. Now, another place in the scripture, so for scriptural context, another place where this
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Hebrew word is used for stirred up is in Deuteronomy chapter 32. Deuteronomy chapter 32, verse 11.
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The scripture says this in Deuteronomy 32, 11, like an eagle that stirs up his nest, that flutters over its young, spreading out its wings, catching them and bearing them on its pinions.
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It's the picture of an eagle going into his nest, stirring up the little eagles to rise up and to fly and to do as he has commanded them.
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The time was no longer to be still, but the time was to move. So, what the text is saying is that by God's actions, by God's actions, by God's will, he roused up and he incited
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Cyrus to action. Next, what we see here, the
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Lord stirred up. So, the Lord roused, incited, stirred up his spirit.
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The word spirit, the Hebrew word there, it refers to the disposition of various kinds.
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So, uncontrolled, unaccountable and uncontrollable impulse.
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What God did was cause Cyrus by stirring him up. He brought him to where he was and stirred him up to make this declaration.
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Now, we can always go back. If you want an easy point of reference for God's sovereignty and God's will, you can always go back to Genesis to the account of Joseph, right?
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The easy place that seems to me kind of the place where everybody goes, right? Joseph's brothers sell him into slavery.
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All this bad stuff happens. The Lord raises Joseph up. Joseph goes back to meet his brethren and he tells them the famous words, right?
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What you meant for evil, God meant for good. And so, my friend,
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God can use the evil in this world to bring glory unto himself. He uses the good in this world to bring glory unto himself because all things are and were created by him.
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Therefore, all things are subject to him. Again, in Genesis chapter 1,
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Genesis chapter 1, 1 through 3, in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.
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The earth was without form and void and darkness was over the face of the deep.
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And what does the text say? And the spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.
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And God said, let there be light. And there was light.
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If God can cause something to come from nothing, then
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God can certainly use something to do anything with that he chooses to do.
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Next, there are those, there are those in the world today, when we speak of the sovereignty of God, when we speak of the providence of God working in and through creation, there are those in the world that have the opinion that it is, quote, unquote, unfair.
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It is unfair if God were to guide and to direct the affairs of men.
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It is not fair that God directs and controls all things. These, these who would say this, really chanting the cause of what's referred to as libertarian free will over against compatible free will.
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And what they say, the libertarian free will holders, they'll say it's unloving and it's cruel for God who is a gentleman.
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They say that's, that's the big argument over the years. You all probably heard that through the years, right?
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God is a gentleman and he will never intrude on you. That's one of the dumbest things that I've ever heard.
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Because if you're going to be saved, it's going to be because God changes your heart.
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Not because you offer something to God, but because God has opened your eyes, given life to the dead soul and spirit within you and brought you out of darkness into his marvelous and his glorious light.
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They'll say it's unloving and it's cruel for God to do that. He's a gentleman. And I would,
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I would point you to a quote by Horatius Bonar. Horatius Bonar said this,
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I do not deny that in conversion, man himself wills in everything that he does, in everything he thinks, in everything he fear of necessity wills.
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In believing, Bonar said, man wills. In repenting, he wills.
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In turning from his evil ways, he wills. All this is true.
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The opposite is both untrue and absurd. But while fully admitting this, there is another question behind it of great interest and movement.
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And that question is this, are these movements of man's will toward good, the effects of the forthcoming of God's will?
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In other words, is man willing because he has made himself so or because God has made him so?
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Does he become willing entirely by act of his own will or by chance or by moral persuasion or because acted on by created causes and influences from without?
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Bonar said, I answer unhesitatingly. He becomes willing because another and a superior will, even that of God, has come into contact with his, altering his nature, its nature and its bent.
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This new bent is the result of a change produced upon it by him who alone of all beings has the right without control to say in regard to all events and changes,
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I will. Only God has that authority. The man's will has followed the movement of the divine will.
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God has made him willing. God's will is first in the movement, not second.
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It is. I would ask this question to consider that as well. Is it unloving for a king to rule and to reign in his own domain?
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No. Is it cruel for a parent to disallow their children to do a thing that would harm them?
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The answer again is no. Is it unfair that the potter has power over the clay to make of it what so ever he desires?
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Again, the answer is no. Elisha Coles, another of the great
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Puritans said this, I shall treat of God's sovereignty. He speaks on sovereignty and he says this, the sum lies in this proposition, namely that the great
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God, blessed forever, has an absolute power and right of dominion over his creatures to dispose and determine of them as seems him good.
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That there is such a power and that this power belongs to God, no other reason needs to be assigned but simply this, he is
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God. Now Elisha Coles didn't sound country right then. Right, he's probably more proper.
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But he said no other reason needs to be assigned but this, that he is God and that there is none beside him.
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There can be no more, Coles said, because number one, there can only be one infinite for such a being fills heaven and earth, so no place or room for another.
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Number two, there can be but only one omnipotent. For he that is such has all others under his feet.
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Number three, there can be but one supreme. And number four, there can be but one first cause from which all beings else derive their origin.
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And that is this blessed one of whom we are speaking.
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For the scripture says in 1 Corinthians 8, 6, of whom and for whom are all things.
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And Coles closed and he said this, if he be the author of all, he needs must have a sovereign right and power to determine all, both as to their being, to their order, to their efficacy and to their end.
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So church, it is very, very important as we move through this and we examine and we consider this thought of God's sovereignty,
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God's providence. It's very important for us to note here that God directs man's steps.
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God directs man's steps, even when man's heart wants to do something else.
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We have plans fixed and set in our mind. I'm going to do this and I'm going to do that on such and such a day.
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I'll go here on such and such a day. We're taught in the New Testament, if the Lord wills, we ought to say.
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If the Lord wills, right? But we have plans in our heart, but the Lord, the Lord directs the steps of man.
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But know this, God, capital does, capital not.
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God does not cause men to have sinful thoughts or to sin.
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Very important distinction there. God has every right to direct his own creation's actions from the scriptures.
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We can rightly infer that God causes many people to think holy and righteous thoughts.
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But God never causes people to think evil thoughts or to commit evil deeds.
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So how do we make this connection? So understand this and I'll probably be saying this here in a minute, too.
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But Cyrus was not a godly king. He was a pagan. God did not cause him to be a pagan.
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And yet God caused him to allow for his people to be brought out of Babylonian captivity.
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God did it. God brought him out. He was a sinner because that's what's born in us.
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We can't help but do anything else from the day of our birth. Then sin.
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We don't become sinners. You don't grow into sin. You don't learn how to sin.
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You learn how to sin better. But you don't learn how to sin.
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Sin is natural. It's a part of who we are. Our sin nature. That is why boys and girls, men and women alike must be born again.
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Samuel Craddock said this. As God created the world and all the creatures therein by his almighty power, so the scriptures teach that he upholds, directs, disposes, and governs them all by his providence.
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Nothing so casual, but he disposes of it. No agent so free as to be exempted from his control.
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No affliction of evil or punishment, but he has a hand in it. But as for sin, he neither is nor possibly can be the author or the approver of it.
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You've heard this at least three times today. And it would be very easy for those skeptics of the word to say that God is the author of evil, but God is not the author of evil.
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He cannot be evil because he is 100 % the opposite of evil.
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He is good to God's sovereignty and God's providence working through creation.
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If you'll remember last week, we had the quote by Octavius Winslow up on the screen.
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He said this so completely was Jesus bent on saving sinners by the sacrifice of himself that he created the tree upon which he was to die.
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And not only did he do that, but he nurtured from infancy. The man who would one day nail him to that accursed wood.
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That is how God works. That is God's glory. So our
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Lord so orchestrated every event from creation until this day.
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And when I say this day, we're talking here again, trying to be in context. So God orchestrated every event since the creation up until this point.
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And even after this point, but for focus up to this point in Israel, God created and set in motion every event so that nothing came to pass without his knowledge.
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One more quote, Abraham Kuyper. I know some of us like Kuyper. There is not a square inch in the whole domain of human existence over which
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Christ, who is sovereign over all, does not cry, that's mine.
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And nobody else. It does not belong to us. We are not co -owners of it.
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It belongs to him. The earth and the fullness thereof belong to the
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Lord God Almighty. So as we're considering how the Lord stirred up Cyrus, how he stirred up the spirit of Cyrus, let's keep in the front of our minds the understanding that in his sovereignty and by his providence, that the
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Lord, again, to use the word, meticulously ordained everything that came to pass.
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We saw that in the history, right? How the Lord sovereignly protected
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Cyrus. You can go back into the scripture and we see how
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God sovereignly protected Moses, right? Right? His savior in that time.
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One like Moses will come after me. Who was that talking about? Jesus. So everything that we're saying today should be pointing us to the glory of God, to worship the
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Lord, our God. One last from Bonar. Nothing that is good can exist which
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God did not will to be. And nothing that is evil can exist which God did not will to allow.
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Amen. The will of God goes before all other wills. It does not depend on them, but they depend on it.
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Its movements regulate them. So with that being said, as we turn back to the text here for just a few more minutes, the text says this, that the
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Lord stirred up the spirit of Cyrus. Cyrus was moved by an unction of the
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Holy Ghost to make the decree to let God's people go back to Jerusalem.
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Which brings to mind another question. Why would a king over such a vast domain?
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Do you remember last week we talked about this? I encourage you when you go home today after church, not while you're driving, but once you get back home or you get to the restaurant,
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Google a map of the Near East and you'll see how vast the domain of the
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Persians was. Just how it was virtually all of the Near East. You'll see this.
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But why would a king over such a vast domain give up the subjects of his kingdom?
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Naturally speaking, there's not a good reason why a king would do that. However, what we can draw from the text, what we can draw from history, what we can draw from human nature is this.
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There were likely political reasons. One of those reasons being this, that in order to gain the favor of a particular people group, it would be beneficial for him to show favor to them.
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Just so you know, the more things change, the more they stay the same. Politics ain't changed.
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It's the same. It's people playing games, trying to get the favor of this group so that they can get a little bit higher over here.
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Same thing with Cyrus. It's likely that was going on. Cyrus was probably also in favor of religious tolerance, as later the
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Romans were, knowing that exiled people, exiled people are best controlled, quote unquote, controlled if they are granted their religious rights and liberties.
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Purely a selfish motive, but nonetheless, it was practical. So another reason might have been that he was syncretistic at heart, meaning this.
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He was thinking that benevolence or showing kindness to Judaism would work in his favor with the pantheon of gods.
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Because Cyrus was a pagan, he worshipped the god Marduk amongst other gods.
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As a matter of fact, there was a temple there in Persia from Cyrus for the god
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Marduk. But nevertheless, despite all of this, the Lord stirred up the spirit of Cyrus and Cyrus made the proclamation.
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And notice what Cyrus did. He not only made the proclamation verbal, but he had it put.
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In writing. If they would have had the internet back then, that's where he would have put it.
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He would have put it on X. He would have put it on Facebook. He would have put it on Instagram.
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And guess what? Greg, our local IT man, he'll tell you if it's on the internet, it's probably there forever.
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Right? Somewhere, it's there. And so Cyrus put this into writing, made it official, so to speak.
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Now, this is a big deal about him making this official for two reasons. Number one, being a historical fact, there was a clay cylinder known as the
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Cyrus cylinder, which was written in Babylonian cuneiform that was discovered in 1879.
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Where? In the foundations of Esagila, which was the Marduk temple of Babylon.
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And as it is kept today, it's kept in the British Museum in London. And what's included on this
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Cyrus cylinder? Well, references to the king's policy of returning images of non -Babylonian deities to their respective cities, which is what we'll find later when we get into it.
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Not today, but we'll find later. This is exactly what Cyrus did. He not only had non -Babylonian stuff of non -Babylonian deities returned to their respective cities, but he repatriated exiled worshippers.
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He sent them back to their hometown. He rebuilt ruined sanctuaries.
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Guess what? The foundation of the temple of God was raised. The temple was raised again, and he solicited prayers for himself.
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Number two, why this was important, because Cyrus' statement was sent to all the kingdoms so that it could not be undone.
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In other words, it was out there. The city of Babylon itself was not really a huge place, four square miles.
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But from the context, we understand that the region, the reign of Cyrus, it covered areas of what we know today as modern
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Iran, of Turkey, of parts of Afghanistan, of Pakistan. It covered all of these areas.
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So not only were the people in the vast kingdoms of Persia to permit the Israelites to go back to Jerusalem, but they were also commanded to provide the means for the rebuilding of that temple.
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And as we see in the text, as we read to you in the text, what Cyrus did,
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Cyrus claimed for himself something that was not his to claim.
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Now, certainly God had given him. He spoke correctly when he said that Yahweh, the God of heaven, had given him all the kingdoms of the world.
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This was true. He had what he had because God had given it to him.
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Certainly Yahweh did providentially place these kingdoms before him. However, his claim,
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Cyrus's claim was pretentious and overbearing. Next, what he said was this, that the
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Lord had given him charge to build him a house in Jerusalem. Keep in mind his religious mindset of that is that of polytheism because he worshipped many gods and he likely assumed, wrongly
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I might add, that Yahweh, Jehovah God, the God, by the way, that created the heavens and the earth, he thought that he would build him a suitable house.
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This demonstrates nothing less than the foolishness of the depraved mind, that you,
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I, Cyrus, or anyone else can think that we can offer to a holy
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God anything. The Bible teaches us this,
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Isaiah chapter 17, verses 7 and 8. In Isaiah 17, 7 and 8, the context of that passage is this, the
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Lord is sending word that destruction will be coming upon Damascus and what the
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Lord is saying is this, that in that day, in that day of destruction, in that day of destruction, in that day man will look to his maker and his eyes will look on the holy one of Israel.
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He will not look to the altars. He will not look to the works of his hands. He will not look on what his own fingers have made.
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He won't look on the ashram or the altars of incense. Cyrus was looking at the work of his hands.
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Cyrus was thinking about the work of his hands. But when it all gets said and done, what we find that Cyrus has nothing to look at because all will be taken away from him and all he will be able to do is look unto his maker, the
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God of the heavens and the earth. Proverbs 16, 9 says, so keeping with this theme of the sovereignty of God, the heart of man plans his way, but the
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Lord establishes his steps. So God sovereignly and God providentially is working out his purpose in this evil king
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Cyrus. So the Lord stirred up the spirit of Cyrus, caused him to make this proclamation before the people.
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Now, what does this teach us in closing? What is our point of application?
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It is this. In the next, in verse four, which we're not going to go into that today, but I'll summarize that in verse four,
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Cyrus's decree, he decrees that the survivors of the city were to be provided for.
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So again, keep in mind, we're not talking a matter of a few days planning, but we're talking about since the creation, he provided beforehand and God, because he is so wise and he is so gracious to his elect people throughout the ages that he makes provision for them in ways that we cannot fathom.
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We think everything just happens. It don't. There's a lot of work that goes into most everything that you encounter in life.
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And what God does behind the scenes, we know nothing of, but it's instances like this.
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It's looking at the depths of text like this that should cause us to say, thank you,
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God. Thank you God, as Newton said, for if it were possible for me to alter any part of his plan,
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I would only spoil it. Thank God that he doesn't call for our aid or our assistance.
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I'm going to say this. God so loved the world.
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That he from all eternity has provided both the means and the ends.
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So that whosoever believes in him would not perish, but have everlasting life.
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From before the foundation of the world. And so today, the general offer of Christ.
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Oh, this is it. The general offer of Christ today is a ground of reception to all who will believe in him today.
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Then the way is open. And I believe it may have been Watson who said this, and Christ is free for me as for any to come and to receive.
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Christ is a common savior, both to the Jew and to the
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Gentile, to all sorts of people. Yes, even the worst sorts of people, the
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Scythians and the barbarians are accepted with Christ when they believe on him for in Christ, there is no respect of persons.
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But everyone, everyone that may and will may receive him and be received of him.
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Stand with us this morning. Today, the gospel call is the same as ever it is.
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Christ died for your sin because you are a sinner because you have transgressed the law of God.
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Christ lived this perfect sinless life, fulfilling the law of God, becoming an acceptable sacrifice for our sin hung there on the cross between the heavens and the earth.
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Bore the wrath of God on our behalf, hung his head, gave up the ghost, died.
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They put him in the tomb and on the third day he arose from the grave.
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And it is because of his resurrection and the satisfaction, his atoning satisfaction that he made in his death and in his life.
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You today might be saved from your sins that you today might be saved from the wrath of almighty
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God. And that you today may know that it is by God's sovereignty and that by God's providence that you are where you are at this very second.