Isaiah Lesson 58

Prayer for the Supreme Court and the Unborn

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. All right, 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 1st 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. 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 the Prophecy of Cyrus

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, one to three?

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 a hundred and fifty 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 design, they'll try to argue that Isaiah was not complete at that time. There's, of course, no evidence for that, and the earliest scroll we have of Isaiah comes from the Dead Seas, the Dead Sea Scrolls, you know, 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 had come and rescued 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.

Thus says the Lord to his anointed. 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 worshiper 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 humble.

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 2nd 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. Yeah.

150 years before he was born. Yeah. 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.

And 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 and so he wanted to fulfill that prophecy and he did.

Alexander the Great also did. Yep, same thing. From Daniel 11, right? 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. It was a form. What they would do is they would inscribe things on a cylinder and bury it in the 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 4? 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? 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 gonna 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 sin. 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 7.

And 8. Who else? Rick, would you mind reading? 7 and 8. 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 8, that's the easy one. We can all say.

Amen. Verse 7, that's a hard one. But the necessary consequent of believing the second. Let's look at verse 8 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 8. 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? It's God and 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. 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 7 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? Ra. 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 in 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 evildoer 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?

He did give man a certain degree of freedom. He said he came and there was catnip for him. He said, if you do well, will you not be approved? Right. So he gave him a free choice from the beginning. He may have created the evil God, but he gave man a free choice to choose good or evil.

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 blood of Jesus speaking a better word.

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 9, Ephesians chapter 1, John 6, 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 man. 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.

And 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. The 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 those choices, the ability to choose, is fixed and dictated to him. It flips everything on its head. 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 JWs, 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, turn to it. 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 Calvinist 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. 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 he 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 there.

Let's move on.

Go ahead John.

If God created calamity. Then can we say that all calamity is necessary?

Yes.

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. This happened.

There's nothing I can do to stop it. It exists because he decreed it. It has a purpose and a plan.

Yes.

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.

Yeah.

Not created calamity. And then we would all be.

Yes.

I would agree with that.

Yes.

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?

Yeah.

One of his mysteries.

It's one of his mysteries.

Yeah. Right.

I'm waiting to learn.

Yeah. Yeah.

I didn't even compare.

And part of the challenges. Is that in our own. Finite mind. We have our own human architecture. Looking at discernment.

Yeah.

Our own lens.

Yes.

We don't use. We're trying to use human logic. And God's omnipotence.

Exactly.

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. God allows. Or God gives permission.