DAY 289

I CARRY YOU!

Isaiah 45 & 46 and 1 Thessalonians 3

These two chapters of Isaiah are fascinating. The first thing I need to point out is that sometimes when you are reading a book, a few chapters are needed to either lay some ground work, or develop a theme, or advance the plot…every chapter cannot be a conclusion or hold all the answers—chapters 45 and 46 fall into this category.

Turning to chapter 45 (it actually starts in 44:24) you are most likely shocked or puzzled because we read that Cyrus, the Babylonian king, is described as the Lord’s Anointed…let me just re-translate that for you…Messiah or Christ. Yup, God’s Word just called a pagan king the Messiah! We met him in 41:2 as the “one from the east” but here is the point—God will use whomever he chooses to get our attention and to bring us back to Him – there is a fancy religious concept for this – it is called the sovereignty of God. But we need to notice something about this part of the chapter. If you look closely at the first seven verses of the chapter you read God speaking in the first person…a lot...He is doing this and not Cyrus. And then we get to verse eight where God commands the heavens to “rain down righteousness.” Cyrus is God’s instrument to accomplish this mission. It is not a fun mission, nor one God desires, but it is a mission that God must accomplish to redeem the world.

Not everyone shares God’s enthusiasm, and yet God says to those who would criticize “does the clay say to him who forms it, ‘What are you making?’ We are the clay and God is the Potter; that in includes Cyrus-he is clay. This becomes apparent as we reach verse 14, we move into a section that proclaims the Lord is the only Savior. Cyrus is one of those details, one of those necessary chapters in the book, so we can see the Lord’s full plan, for even Cyrus and Babylon must see that God alone reigns.

And so we come to the end of chapter 45 where we read in verse 22 that all the earth must turn to the Lord – an amazingly sweeping statement which is coupled with verse 23 that says every knee shall bow and every tongue shall swear allegiance – an amazingly personal statement…a statement that even applies to the god’s of Babylon…the gods Bel and Nebo. Here is where a little detail helps. At the annual celebration of those gods, those idols, they would be carried through the streets…and what does God, the One True Living God, say to his people, the people whom He used Cyrus to discipline? He says "Listen to me, O house of Jacob, all the remnant of the house of Israel, who have been borne by me from before your birth, carried from the womb; even to your old age I am he, and to gray hairs I will carry you. I have made, and I will bear; I will carry and will save.

What an amazing two chapters. We start with God wielding a pagan king as an instrument of discipline -- it certainly yields an image of a tough God. Then we read that this same God will carry the people. There is an old story about when you are really struggling in life. The image is of you walking with God on the beach. The foot prints all of sudden shift from two sets to one – why? Because God is carrying you! Amazing.