Monday, December 14, 2015

Called By Name!

Yahweh is the One True God, and there is no other! He has been working and showing Himself to mankind, His creation from the beginning. For instance, take this passage in the Book of Isaiah, "Who says of Jerusalem, ‘She shall be inhabited,’and of the cities of Judah, ‘They shall be built, and I will raise up their ruins’; who says to the deep, ‘Be dry; I will dry up your rivers’; who says of Cyrus, ‘He is my shepherd, and he shall fulfill all my purpose’; saying of Jerusalem, ‘She shall be built,’and of the temple, ‘Your foundation shall be laid.’”Cyrus, God's Instrument, Thus says the Lord to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have grasped, to subdue nations before him and to loose the belts of kings, to open doors before him that gates may not be closed: “I will go before you and level the exalted places, 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 hoards in secret places, that you may know that it is I, the Lord, the God of Israel, who call you by your name. For the sake of my servant Jacob, and Israel my chosen, I call you by your name, I name you, though you do not know me. I am the Lord, and there is no other, besides me there is no God; I equip you, though you do not know me, that people may know, from the rising of the sun and from the west, that there is none besides me; I am the Lord, and there is no other. I form light and create darkness, I make well-being and create calamity, I am the Lord, who does all these things" (Isaiah 44:26b-45:7). Now, that doesn't mean a whole lot until you look at the first few verses of Ezra, "In the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, that the word of the 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: “Thus says Cyrus king of Persia: The 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. 3 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 Lord, the God of Israel—he is the God who is in Jerusalem" (Ezra 1:1-3). Now, obviously there is a connection. God calls Cyrus out to do something, and he does it. The crazy awesome part about this is that even though Isaiah comes after Ezra in the Bible, it was actually written about 140 years before it! That means that God called out Cyrus by name and said what he would do about 1000 years before he was born! Isaiah didn't know who Cyrus was! Cyrus didn't exist yet! However, God knew each one of us before He made us. Through the prophet Isaiah, God showed Cyrus who He is. Josephus even wrote to back up the biblical account that Cyrus did indeed read Isaiah's prophecy, and through that, He shows all of us who He is. He is God, and He holds all things in His hands!

1 comment:

  1. Isn't that like "The Star of Bethlehem"? When God created the "Big Bang" saying "Let there be light". He knew where the signs in the sky would be hundreds of thousands of years earlier, when the stars would tell, when Jesus would be born and when he would die. It came into perfect alignment. Of course, it had to be perfect. It was designed by God.

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