Isaiah Lesson 58

Alright, well welcome everybody. Glad you're here. We're going to open up Isaiah 45.

Before we do that, today is a very important day in the fight against Roe vs.

Wade. There's a case being argued, probably as we speak, I think it's called

Dodd, the Texas heartbeat law, and it will challenge the very foundation of Roe vs.

Wade. So we need to pray for God to grant wisdom to those who are arguing, and also for the judges to be just and to uphold the right to life.

So let's just start before we open the text. How about I'll pray for that, and then you can pray for our study, and then we'll dive in.

What I'd like to do, you prayed for the decision, and like we prayed earlier,

I'd like to pray for the country's response. Yeah, excellent. Let's do that. Alright, so Father God, we come to you now,

Lord, on this important day, knowing that you are sovereign over times and dates and everything that happens under the sun.

You are the sovereign king. You have called on us to pray, and our prayers are even instrumental in the way things unfold, for you have ordained the means as well as the ends.

And so, Lord, you knew that we would call on you this day, and so we do, Lord. Your people are calling on you to rescue the lives of the innocent.

We pray for babies who are being taken away to the slaughter. We pray, Lord, for the justices, the nine

Supreme Court justices, that you would grant them a spirit of wisdom and counsel and power,

Lord God, that they would have discernment to know truth, Lord God, that they would have courage to stand up against a woke mob, courage to even put their lives on the line in making a just decision for the sake of the innocent.

So, God, we pray that you would grant that to these justices as they confer and debate, and we pray that Roe versus Wade would be overturned in Jesus' name.

God, you are able to do that, and we ask you to do it, Lord. Please, for the sake of these babies, Lord, for the sake of your great name in the earth, be glorified in this victory,

Lord God. We ask it in Jesus' mighty name. Lord, anticipating that with the decision, and you are sovereign, we boldly pray that this decision will protect that second

DNA that's within the woman's womb. Knowing, Lord, that there are going to be many in our country who emotionally respond in disdain over that.

Lord, Peter wrote, and we read it in 1 Peter chapter 3, verse 15, sanctify the

Lord in your hearts, always being ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you, yet with gentleness and reverence.

Lord, I pray for our country that it would not become violently divided. I pray for believers, for us, for all believers, that when conversation is there and the topic comes up, that you would give us the words to make a defense for the hope that's there for these unborn children, and that it is you.

Yet, Lord, that we would do it with gentleness and reverence and respecting people, but yet keeping without compromise to truth.

So, Lord, give us your wisdom and your strength. Now, Lord, as we open up the book of Isaiah, and we understand a man by the name of Cyrus, who from absolutely from nowhere, he steps up and allows the nation to return.

Give us, Lord, give us the message of hope, even that comes from this, as we continue to recognize the battle between false gods and true

God, but we see how Cyrus stood up. So, Lord, give

Pastor Jeff the words to speak and give us ears to hear this morning, this afternoon, in Jesus' name, amen.

Amen, amen. All right, let's turn to Isaiah chapter 45 this morning.

Okay, so we have been studying through the book of Isaiah, and as we entered into the 40th chapter, all the way through chapter 48, the section here we have entitled the trial of false gods, the trial of false gods.

And herein, Yahweh, Jehovah, sets himself up as the one true

God over against any rivals. And again and again, almost like a trial, there is evidence admitted.

We just prayed for a trial that's taking place at the Supreme Court, and the

Supreme Court justices will weigh the evidence. Well, what evidence does God present that he is alone the one true

God, with none beside him? He stretches out the heavens alone. What evidence does he provide that we would know that?

Fulfillment of prophecy. Yes, we're telling future things that then come to pass in real time, and also being able to tell the meaning of things in the past, the purpose for things that have already happened, so that he has the scope of history in his hands.

So, here we go. Isaiah 45, we're picking up with this prophecy that actually began in the previous verse.

We only touched on it last week, in verse 28 of the 44th chapter. But John, would you read for us 45, 1 to 3?

Can I start at 28? Yeah, go for it. It is I who says of Cyrus, he is my shepherd, and he will perform all my desire, and he declares of Jerusalem she will be built, and of the temple your foundation will be laid.

Thus says the Lord to Cyrus, his anointed, whom I have taken by the right hand to subdue nations before him, and to loose the loin of kings, and to open the doors before him, so that gates will not be shut.

I will go before you and make the rough places smooth. I will shatter the doors of bronze and cut their iron bars.

I will give you the treasures of darkness and hidden wealth of secret places, in order that you may know that it is

I, the Lord, the God of Israel, who calls you by name. Okay, this is one of the most remarkable prophecies in the

Bible, for a couple of reasons. One, it names, by name, a person who is yet to be born.

He is not to be born until the year 600, and this prophecy is being written in advance of 700, maybe 710

BC. So, Cyrus will come and wreck Babylon in the year 539

BC. So, recognize this is 150 plus years ahead of time.

Now, what does a liberal scholar do with something like this? Yes, they try to claim that the book of Isaiah is not a 66 chapter unit, but that there's

Proto -Isaiah, Deutero -Isaiah, and then the third. So, they'll try to argue that Isaiah was not complete at that time.

There's, of course, no evidence for that. The earliest scroll we have of Isaiah comes from the

Dead Sea Scrolls, the Great Isaiah Scroll. But the tradition of passing on the text from one generation to another, it was always regarded as a singular unit.

It was only in response to a presupposition that the modern quote -unquote scientists have come up with their theories, their only theories.

Now, what is their presupposition? An anti -supernatural bias. They come in a priori saying it's impossible that anyone could know the name of somebody who wasn't born yet.

And, you know, of course, the king who would come and rescue Israel. So, because they automatically a priori assume that, they have an anti -supernatural bias.

Isaiah couldn't have known, therefore, this must be a late interpolation. But that was never regarded to be the case.

It's only that supposition that causes them to theorize that it was written later.

You see the problem? They just come at it with an unbelieving, skeptical heart. So, let's look at the actual words, because this is truly an amazing prophecy.

Now, that's a troubling word, because what's the Greek for the

Hebrew Mashiach? Christ. Anointed one. But it does remind us of what anointed means.

It means specially chosen by God, set apart, anointed for a certain work.

Now, there is a sense in which God will anoint Cyrus to deliver his people.

Of course, he is not the Christ. He becomes a type of the Christ in that way. But here's what's so striking about it.

As we're about to see on this scroll here, which I'll show you in just a minute, Cyrus himself is not a genuine worshipper of God.

He himself, although anointed, is chosen for a purpose that God has in using him, but Cyrus himself does not so intend in his heart.

So, mark that for just a minute. So, he says this to Cyrus, whose right hand I have grasped.

So, God says that he's taken the right hand of Cyrus and strengthened it to subdue all the nations before him.

It was God that made Cyrus the conqueror in 539 BC, to loose the belts of kings, to open doors before him that gates may not be closed.

What does that remind you of? Open doors that no one can shut, closed doors that no one can open.

Yeah, in Revelation, Jesus the Christ actually does that. And it was Christ himself opening these doors for Cyrus, although he didn't know it.

He wasn't aware of what God was doing, but it was God that was opening these doors for him to be quote -unquote king of the world.

In verse 2, I will go before you and level the exalted places. The exalted place in this case is

Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar's kingdom, who now he's passing on to his son.

These who pretend to the throne of God are actually being humbled, but God is using other wicked rulers to do it.

He's humbling the exalted. I will break in pieces the doors of bronze and cut through the bars of iron.

I will give you the treasures of darkness and the hordes in secret places. So, that picture is like the storehouses of Babylon.

What was held in the storehouses of Babylon? The treasures of Israel.

All of the temple's gold and all of those utensils that the priests were to make use of had all been carried away.

God is opening this and putting it into the hands of Cyrus. Of course, we know the story from Ezra, from Nehemiah, from the end of 2

Chronicles. What does he do with that? He gives it back to Israel.

He, in fact, equips them with gold and silver and sends them to rebuild the temple. Amazing that he would do that.

Why would he do that? For those of you who were here last week, you know. What got to Cyrus's heart to make him do that?

This prophecy that named him 150 years before he was born. Yeah. So, it was

Josephus that records that when Cyrus conquered Babylon and he found

Daniel and the other believers there, they showed him, because they were high in the court, they showed him the ancient writings of Isaiah.

When he saw that, his heart swelled. He was excited by this and he wanted to fulfill what was written about him.

So, Isaiah's writing was fulfilled in him and he was happy to do it. He was all excited.

So, he wanted to fulfill that prophecy and he did. That was later repeated by Alexander the

Great. Alexander the Great, also from Daniel 11.

So, he says that you may know that it is I, the Lord, the God of Israel, who call you by your name.

This is the remarkable part of the prophecy. God actually gives his name,

Cyrus, long before. So, what is the reason for this? Well, a reason for Cyrus's conquering is actually for Israel's deliverance.

He sent him to be a deliverer. So, let's look now at what's called the

Cyrus Cylinder. If you guys can adjust your seats to be able to see this. This is a cylinder which was discovered and it was a form.

What they would do is they would inscribe things on a cylinder and bury it in a city wall to commemorate something that happened.

In 539 BC, zoom in on that.

Look at that. This was an inscription written in 539

BC describing Cyrus conquering Babylon.

And it's remarkable because in that writing we have the actual words of Cyrus.

Cyrus himself speaking. He says, I, Cyrus, king of the world. Isn't that remarkable?

I, Cyrus, king of the world. He's conquered the world. Of course, he's not glorifying God. King of the world.

He goes on to talk about the neighboring peoples that he's conquered. He claims to have restored their temples and religions.

Here is what he'll say in here regarding his victory over Babylon. He said the leader in Babylon failed to honor

Marduk, the god of Babylon. And so he was sent by Marduk to restore the proper balance in that land.

And so what Cyrus did was kind of the opposite of the Babylonians who had carried people into Babylon.

He allowed people to go back. And so history records from this is in the

British Museum. It was discovered and recorded there in 1880. So you have here the

Cyrus cylinder, which proves the Bible. Because in Ezra and Nehemiah, you have a king who comes in, conquers

Babylon and graciously sends Israel back to the promised land.

Well, the historian is saying, well, that sounds pretty fanciful. Why would a king ever do that?

Why would he tell people to give money and go back? This is exactly what Cyrus did. But it was not only for Yahweh as the king of the universe.

He saw Yahweh as a local tribal deity. And so he was sending

Israel back to Israel just as he established Babylon back under Marduk.

So he did not see God as the true king of the world. Isn't that neat that that's survived to this day?

But we think about it. Cyrus claims to be the king of the world.

But what do we know from the book of Isaiah before this ever happened? He says, for the sake of my servant

Jacob, referring to Israel, the God of Israel, speaking, and Israel, my chosen,

I call you by your name. He says more than I call you. It's not that he's just foreseeing.

What does he go on to say in verse four? I name you though you do not know me.

Naming him is exerting his authority over Cyrus. It was

God who made Cyrus and raised him up to do this. He gave him the name Cyrus. When his mom was giving birth and the father, the king, chose the name for his son.

It was God that gave him the name Cyrus, just as he had written 150 years ahead of time.

So it was actually God serving his own people. He doesn't know it, but the reason he's conquering

Babylon is because a certain amount of time has run its course.

How many years is that? 150? No, 70.

Jeremiah had prophesied that the people of Israel had to be in captivity for 70 years.

One year for every time they neglected the seventh year Sabbath of the land.

In other words, every seven years, Israel was supposed to let their land lay fallow and it would be in a

Sabbath year, but they never did that for 490 years. So they owed God 70 years and God said,

Israel is going to lay fallow for 70 years. You go to Babylon. And so it comes in 539, 70 years later that God sends

Cyrus to set the people free and to send them back. Isn't that amazing?

It's just God's sovereign plan. Do you see his sovereignty in all this? So then, would somebody read verses, let's just read four again through six.

Bob, you cleared your throat. That made me pick you. Four through six. For the sake of Jacob, my servant, of Israel, my chosen,

I summon you by name and bestow on you a title of honor, though you do not acknowledge me.

I am the Lord and there is no other. Apart from me, there is no God. I will strengthen you, though you have not acknowledged me, so that from the rising of the sun to the place of its setting, men may know there is none besides me.

I am the Lord and there is no other. Cyrus claimed,

I, the king of the world. God says, I am the

Lord and there is no other. Besides me, there is no

God. I equip you, though you do not know me. He's speaking to Cyrus here. And it's amazing that Cyrus's words would be preserved in the archaeological record, that we could see that still over against what

God is saying to him. That people may know from the rising of the sun and from the west that there is none beside me.

See here, this again is the trial of false gods. Marduk, step up.

Cyrus, step up. Every other so -called God, come to the table. We will reason and show

Isaiah 118. Let us reason together. The true God is known through his word.

He said, besides me there's no other. I equip you. It's God who did this. As much as Cyrus is delighting in his power,

God said he would do this 150 years before. So it's God doing it through him. I am the

Lord, there is no other. So here you see the great concern of the trial of false gods.

And the great concern is that God is concerned for his own glory.

That there's no other beside him. Do you know that God is jealous for his own glory?

He values himself above all else. John Piper makes much of this and Jonathan Edwards.

This idea that God delights in God.

Some have called that a divine egoism. But in a good way. This divine egoism is actually good.

If God valued us creatures above himself, he would be unjust.

He rightly esteems his infinite worth. And he delights to receive worship because that is where the true value and treasure is.

He rightly sees the way things are. And so God is God -centered, not man -centered.

Salvation of man is not his highest end. The glorification of himself is.

And you see it in the trial of false god. Isn't that beautiful? This is his concern. And that makes more sense of the doctrines to follow.

Let's read verses seven and eight. Rick, would you mind reading? Seven and eight.

I form light and create darkness. I make well -being and create calamity.

I am the Lord who does all these things. Shower, O heavens, from above and let the clouds rain down righteousness.

Let the earth open that salvation and righteousness may bear fruit. Let the earth cause them both to sprout.

I, the Lord, have created everything. Okay. Verse eight. That's the easy one.

We can all say amen. Verse seven. That's the hard one. But the necessary consequent of believing the second.

Let's look at verse eight first. Shower, O heavens, from above and let the clouds rain down righteousness.

Let the earth open that salvation and righteousness may bear fruit.

As the rain is a gift from God. It's his doing, a monergistic work.

It's his energy. No synergy from man to make that happen. It's God who waters the earth.

In the same way, salvation belongs to the Lord. When Jonah was sinking down into the depth, he had nothing to offer.

He was sinking to the bottom of the earth. Seaweed wrapped around his head and he confessed salvation is of the

Lord. God alone saved him. It was his work alone. His sovereign choice to save.

That's what it says in verse eight. That salvation and righteousness may bear fruit.

Let the earth cause them both to sprout. I, the Lord, have created it. Who is the author and perfecter of salvation?

Jesus. It's God in Christ. Yes. God alone saves.

Ephesians 1 11. We can delight to say in him we have obtained an inheritance.

Having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to his will.

The counsel of his will. His will. We love to think of this and I think

Christians rightly delight that God saves us. It's all his work. We bring nothing to the table.

That's the good side. But let's look at verse seven to understand what also is implied in that teaching of predestination.

That all things work according to his will. He is not shy to say

I form light and create darkness.

I make well -being and create calamity. Now let me put a sharper edge on that word calamity.

John, you know the Hebrew word there for calamity? It's the word for evil. Rah. Rah.

Rah. He says I create evil. But God is not the author of evil.

So here's the dilemma. God as the sovereign king that we're talking about in this passage in the sphere of his sovereignty has decreed everything that would come to pass and that includes evil.

For which he holds the evildoer responsible. So God has a big plan.

Think of it as like a sphere and within that sphere there is real evil taking place that come from the hearts and attentions of sinners.

Put Cyrus on the stage. He's walking around on this globe making decisions for himself.

I am king and he goes and conquers nations and it's not always just a peaceful oh let's hand over power.

Although the conquering of Babylon they pretty much just surrendered to him. But he was also a wicked man.

He would kill anybody that stood in his way. No due process in trials, right?

He was a dictator. Although he was considered even by Alexander the Great to be a very benevolent kind of ruler and one of the best rulers of all time.

However, he himself was a sinner. Within God's sovereign plan,

Cyrus would make real decisions from his own heart that would include evil. That's part of God's plan and everything that Cyrus would do making the evil decisions that he would do was part of God's plan and purpose.

What the Bible makes extremely clear is that evil is laid at the feet of sinners and fallen angels.

Satan is responsible for his own pride in his own heart. Isaiah 14 we talked about that.

It's also Ezekiel 28. Sinners are held responsible for their own so you can't blame

God. He never takes responsibility in the sense of I am the evil doer in authoring sin but he does say that my plan included sin in this world and his plan included before the foundation of the world the redemption for sinners that Christ would die the death of sinners.

That was both an evil and a just act at the same time. For God's part, justice satisfied but it involved evil.

In order for Christ to die the death that we deserve, sinners had to crucify him and reject him and hate him and spit on him.

All this sin was part of the plan of redemption. So what

I'm saying to you in verse 7, God actually uses the words I make well -being and create calamity.

Evil. It's part of my plan in the big sphere of things. I am the

Lord who does all of these things. So let's pause for a moment. I just wanted to give time for some conversation around that point because that's a big one right there.

It changes how we think about God. The cults build their philosophy against this doctrine.

The starting point of Mormonism is the free agency of man and if you read the

Book of Mormon, which I've done, it makes this point again and again. It's built on the free agency of man and that God is not ultimately free.

Many attempts have been made to reconcile these things by rejecting one or the other.

Man has a real will but God has a sovereign plan and both of those things are compatible.

So what do you guys think? Any questions, thoughts, or comments? Right. Right.

And by that will, I don't use the term free will. I use the term creaturely will. Because the problem isn't that man has a real choice.

He has a real creaturely choice. The problem is that his nature is enslaved to sin. So the desires of the heart of a fallen man are to do evil and there's not that capability of doing the will of God.

So when he says it's not a counterfactual as if God is waiting to see what

Cain would do. He knew that Abel would be killed by Cain and that in fact was part of the plan, which is a type of Christ.

Remember Hebrews 12? The blood of Abel then calls out from the ground and that speaks prophetically of the it was always within God's sovereign plan that Cain would kill

Abel. But when Cain killed Abel, it came from his heart, his desire.

He's responsible for those things. It doesn't work God's plan. Now many efforts have been made.

I'm going to introduce you to another one to reconcile these things. When the reformers began to teach this doctrine, they were rediscovering what

Augustine had taught, which was a summary of what Paul taught in Romans chapter nine,

Ephesians chapter one, John six and other places. The reformers then taught that salvation is a free gift of God apart from works and that faith is the gift of God.

Well, right away the Roman Catholic church objected to that because their entire sacramental system is built on synergism.

That man has to do the sacraments and contribute that to maintain their own justification. It's a cooperation between the grace of God and the work of men.

So that sacramentalism is very syncretistic. The work of man and the work of God must cooperate.

It's not just God's work in saving a free gift and it's all of grace. There's something that man has to contribute, some work.

So Erasmus fought with Luther. He wrote the freedom of the will against Luther's bondage of the will.

This progressed. The reformation picked up steam and finally the Jesuits were formed. These were counter reformers and their whole charge was to put down the reformation.

One of the biggest Jesuits of the time, the greatest theological mind of his generation was

Jacques Molina and he came up with what was called Molinism. The concept of Molinism is that ultimately man's free will decides salvation.

So picture it like this, that God is like dealt cards in heaven before the foundation of the world.

He knows what every individual free will in the history of the world will do given given circumstances.

So let's say there's somebody that's just inherently wicked. No matter what universe

God would create, that person would never be saved. And so what

God does is he looks at the cards that he's dealt before the foundation of the world and he opts for the world, the possible world, because he has counterfactual knowledge, the knowledge of what would happen in any given world.

God chooses the world that maximizes the number of people who would be saved. That's Molinism.

Problem with Molinism is it makes God a divine card dealer. And why is this being choosing the way he does?

God then becomes dependent on the free will of man and that, those choices, the ability to choose is fixed and dictated to him.

It flips everything on its head. Yeah, interestingly, just Monday there was finally a big debate over this subject because these leading apologists who are going the

Molinist way, even within evangelicalism, have been teaching Molinism. William Lane Craig is the biggest proponent of it now and he has others within his fold and some of the young apologists are jumping on board.

Well, on Monday, James White and William Lane Craig debated and that drops on Friday.

They'll release the debate if you guys want to watch it. A Calvinist versus a Molinist. It's going to be on YouTube, yeah.

So the reason I bring all this up is because man hates this idea that God would have a sovereign decree.

The freedom of God is anathema and they'll fight against it whether it's the Roman Catholics with Molinism, Mormonism, Jehovah's Witnesses.

When they knocked on our door, the JW's, and Timmy came to the door with me, the one thing they said is that God does not create evil.

That's what we're here to tell you. That was their lead in. And I said, well what do you do with Isaiah 45 7?

And Timmy also argued that same point along with me. And she's like, turned to it and she said, well,

I don't know. Because it literally says, I create wrong.

So in what sense is that true? Even if you don't take it as that he's the author of sin, we agree, because sin is laid as the responsibility of the sinner.

What does it mean that he creates wrong? It has to mean something. It's in the Bible, right? And it means he has a decree that includes the plan whereby evil would be a part of this world.

And the actual evil choices are part of God's plan. If you go the Molinist route or any other

Arminian route, right? You think you're doing something to help, but all you're actually losing is

God's purpose, his plan. Now you have the same thing happening.

God able to stop it. He doesn't stop it, but for no purpose.

In other words, when that shooter goes into the high school in Illinois and kills three kids yesterday,

God could have stopped it. All will agree. He didn't stop it.

The Molinist and the Arminian and those who deny the plan of God have the same problem the

Calvinists do. That's the problem of evil. There's evil in the world, and God allows it.

If you take this teaching that God has a decree, he's planned it, he has a purpose in it.

Now there's a reason for all things that happen. Romans 8, 28, he's working it all together for good for those who love

God and are called according to his purpose. He's glorifying himself, and in the eschaton, we'll see how that all fits together.

But the Molinist doesn't even rescue anything in his planning, because if you actually think about it, everything is still determined in their scheme as well.

If God only has foreknowledge of the things to come, in his mind, it's already determined.

Judas will still betray Jesus, and Judas doesn't have any more of a choice in that scheme than it does in the

Calvinist scheme, right? Because God knows what he will do, and if he did differently, then

God would have been wrong. In other words, look at Isaiah 45. If his father does not name him

Cyrus, then the prophecy isn't true and God's a liar. The Arminian and the

Molinist has the same problem. It has to be determined. Do you see the problem there?

The Molinist and the Arminian are trying to escape the decree of God, but all they do is lose the purpose of God.

So we went deep that all calamity is necessary? Yeah, everything is worked out for a purpose.

It is necessary in his plan. It is decreed. It's not that God looked down the corridor of history and learned what was going to happen, and he's upset, you know, this happened, there's nothing

I could do to stop it. It exists because he decreed it. It has a purpose and a plan.

Can we boil it down to say that he created calamity so that we can have free will?

By free will, what do you mean? To choose between the good and the evil, in a sense to accept

Christ or not. The fallen man will never choose

Christ. So it's not the will of man that ultimately brings a person to Christ, it's the free will of God.

Yes, but by creating calamity, it offers us the opportunity to choose between the good and the evil.

So in the garden of Eden, he could have not created calamity, and then we would all be...

Yes, I would agree with that. So part of the fall of man, there seems to be free will in the garden, meaning he could have created automatons, you know, the

C .S. Lewis argument, and that does have some explanatory power, but not after the fall.

Does that make sense? Because before the fall, he could have just made Adam and Eve...

He didn't have to put a tree of knowledge of good and evil in the garden. He knew what was going to happen ahead of time. Yes, and he knew it.

Yep, that's the key point. So yeah, I think there does come a point for any

Christian, any human being, that the problem of evil has an element that we can't solve.

Why did God choose to do that? That's one of his mysteries. It's one of his mysteries, yeah.

I'm waiting to learn. And part of the challenge is that in our own finite mind, we have our own human architecture, looking at discernment through our own lens.

We're trying to use human logic and God's omnipotence, and you can't flip that.

And this verse in particular, there's so many arguments about it, but one of the things when people use the word, you know,

God allows, or God gives permission, or God, you know, that's where that sort of, we're trying to put it through our lens and our logic.

That's right. But we don't have the mind of God at that point. Right, that's not the proper language of it. It's not the proper language of it, and that's the challenge of that.

In the end of the story, it goes back to he's always going to do something to glorify himself.

It's never going to be about us. It's always going to go back to him. So that is so well said.

Thank you very much. Carol? I'm having big problems. Yes. Can't imagine why.

It made it sound like Cain didn't have a choice. Judas didn't have a choice.

It was already designed that they were going to do what they did, and so they just become lost.

It's a both and. Meaning they had a choice, but that choice, they will choose according to their own desires.

And that's a fallen desire. So here's the dilemma, that all people are fallen in Adam, and they're desperately sick.

The heart is wicked. There's no one who chooses God. There's no one who does right. There's no one righteous.

No, not one. Their throats are an empty, are venomous. You know, it's just like this picture of a dead sinner that can't help himself.

The nature is enslaved to sin. And so the slave of sin will sin. And he can't not.

It's part of his nature. So it's a choice that he has, but he will choose according to his nature.

So if you think about it like this, all of humanity is fallen. And if God just allows people to go into the judgment that they deserve, he's righteous and just, but that he does grant salvation and save some, that's the miracle.

Why do you save any? Not looking at it from the other side, like, well, God, how is it just of you to pass over some?

That's the opposite way of thinking about it. But if we come from the biblical perspective of who we are, why are you saving us?

But you're not saving those fallen angels. Why are demons going to hell? Why is Satan going to hell?

Why are sinners going to hell? Of course, sinners are going to hell. Why would you save me, a sinner who's rebelled against the throne?

Why are any of us mercy? Let's look at the next verse. It just totally wraps it up.

And we'll go from from there. Let me just read it. We'll go quick because I got it closed. We'll take it up again more because this subject actually goes all through Isaiah 40 to 48.

Woe to him who strives with him who formed him. You guys will recognize this language because where where Paul gets it in Romans nine, a pot among earthen pots.

Does the clay say to him who forms it, what are you making for? Your work has no handles.

I like the way Isaiah said it even better than the way that Paul summarized it in Romans 920.

Well, I like both of them. But will the pot say, why do you make me like this? Romans 920, you know, your work has no handles.

Verse 10. Woe to him who says to a father, what are you beginning or to a woman with?

What are you in labor? That would be just as absurd. God is the potter.

The woman will give birth to a child. God is the one who's making and doing.

He's the one forming. The clay cannot say to the potter, why did you make me like this? So it's a upholding of God's absolute freedom, his right to take up the clay and to make from one lump of the same lump, one item for honorable purposes and another for dishonorable.

He upholds his own freedom to do that. Well, the lump of clay in this analogy is the sinful lot of Adam, all of them deserving wrath so that he would take any lump and make a jar of clay for him to hold the treasure of Christ.

That's the miracle. That's what we should marvel at. Then it says 11 to 13 real quick.

Thus says the Lord, the holy one of Israel and the one who formed him. Ask me of things to come. Will you command me concerning my children and the work of my hands?

I made the earth and created man on it. It was my hands that stretched out the heavens and I commanded all their hosts.

See the right of the potter here, the potter's freedom, as James White would say. In verse 13,

I have stirred up him up in righteousness. Again, that's about Cyrus. It was God who got him all worked up to go conquer.

I will make all his ways level. He shall build my city and set my exiles free.

The exiled people of Israel will go free because it's God doing this, not for price or reward.

They won't buy their way out. In fact, Cyrus will give them money to go, says the

Lord of hosts. The big idea here, we'll just close for today and we'll revisit this in coming weeks.

Cyrus is the perfect example of the sovereignty of God. That God would take of him and make him a vessel for his own use, even though he himself is wicked, he will use him to deliver his people.

And then he himself will be judged because he worships Marduk and is an evil person.

Yeah, God has the right of the potter to make of the clay, whatever he will.

So here we have a very high view of God's creative decree that he creates the heavens.

Not only that, he creates salvation. Look at verse 8.

I, the Lord, have created him that salvation and righteousness may bear.

He creates salvation. Carol or Luis or Bob or John, it was

God who outwardly sent the gospel of Jesus Christ that you would hear.

He created that witness and it was confirmed with deep conviction and power outwardly and in forceful and impassioned preaching.

This is the language of First Thessalonians 1. And also in the deep conviction of the Holy Spirit, it was him that moved in your heart to believe it.

That was him creating salvation in you. And so you believed rich that that was a gift from God.

He sent that to you and he saved you. He made you a jar of clay to hold the surpassing treasure of Christ.

It was all his work, all to his glory. Salvation is of the Lord. And as we accept his predestined plan,

Ephesians 111 to do that. He likewise has predestined all things to work out according to the purpose of his will.

He has a purpose in every Cyrus. In every Joe Biden, in every wicked thing that happens on the face of the earth, in every abortion that's happened and every baby that's ended up in heaven.

And the overturning of Roe versus Wade, the vindication of his people after 50 years.

In everything that will happen in the world, we will look back from the heavenly perspective,

Ivan, when we can see not through a glass dimly, but face to face. We can look back and see all of these things work together for good and for his glory.

Deeper the darkness, the greater the light. And in that, in Isaiah 45, seven,

I form light and darkness. He creates some vessels for wrath in order to display his justice.

Even the suffering of sinners in hell for all eternity will be to his glory.

It will display his power, his righteousness, his holiness, his justice.

Yes. And how does he display his mercy for all time in a people for his own possession, who forever praise him for his redemption as subjects that have been redeemed?

It's all to his glory. So that's what this teaches. Isaiah 40 to 48 presents this high view of God.

The glory of God is the concern, not the glory of man. It's not how we think.

It's very contra. And so every false system will exalt man and try to limit, put limits on the freedom of God.

The Bible does the opposite. It exalts the freedom of God and puts us in our place. We're clay that he has the freedom to do with it as he pleases.

So John, would you close us in prayer? Lord, you are the God, the almighty, the creator. As we've been able to look through this account and even understanding

Cyrus and the proclamations that I am the Lord, there is no other, that the one who forms light, creates darkness, causes well -being and creates raw.

We submit to your sovereignty. Lord, we choose not to make ourselves the authority, but we submit to the

King of kings and the Lord of lords. Thank you for this truth, for this message and this hope.