Gracepointe Church (Dover, OH)
Gracepointe Church (Dover, OH)
Redemption | Brad Hoblit
Can God's redemptive plan still hold true amidst our deepest sorrows and fears? Join us as we unravel the profound messages of Isaiah, beginning with the reassuring promise found in Isaiah 41:13. We reflect on Israel's turbulent history of disobedience and captivity, exploring the significant transition from divine judgment to redemption in Isaiah 40. Through this journey, we contemplate the deep sorrow and eventual repentance of Israel, understanding how God's unwavering plan continually works to restore His people to their intended glory.
Ever wondered how God's sovereignty intersects with human affairs, especially through seemingly unlikely leaders? Our discussion on Isaiah 45 delves into this intriguing concept, where God utilizes both righteous and pagan leaders, like Emperor Cyrus, to fulfill His divine purposes. By examining verses such as Isaiah 45:7, we grapple with the notion of God's control over both prosperity and calamity, and how this challenges our understanding of His ultimate authority. Through the story of Cyrus, we underscore the importance of trust in God's grand design, even when it defies human logic.
We then bridge the connection between Cyrus and Christ, exploring the prophetic depictions found in Isaiah 42 and chapters 52-53. These passages illustrate a suffering servant who embodies ultimate justice, foreshadowing Jesus' role in God's redemptive plan. We reflect on the profound tension between suffering and divine perfection, highlighting how Christ's sacrifice unites God's sovereignty with His mission to redeem humanity. This exploration reaffirms God's faithfulness and His enduring promise to be our source of hope and help, regardless of the season we find ourselves in.
Give me just a moment here to reconfigure myself, okay. Well, it is really as I said before it's really a blessing to be here. It's a blessing to be able to share with you a little bit about our life. It's especially a blessing to be able to break with you the bread of the Word of God, to share fellowship with you, because it is truly the bond of the believer that binds us together, that we are one family in Christ, and that is the true root of our friendship and of our connection, and so it's good for us to share in that. Crystal and I especially really enjoy coming back here and singing with you and hearing you sing.
Speaker 1:The singing experience in Roos Roos is quite a bit different. It's beautiful in its own way, but it's very different, and so it's a balm for our soul to come back and sit and hear the music that comes from you and praise to the Lord. So thank you for that. I asked you to be praying this morning as we go through this. I don't feel especially prepared for this message. I think that the Word of God is powerful enough to speak for itself, and so my hope here is to just spend some time in the Word of God and we're going to be really kind of running through the latter portion of the book of Isaiah. That's where we're going to spend our time, and so I feel just a little bit disjointed with this, and so I'm trusting that God will, as Sean prayed, that God will bring out his message in the way that he wants it to be presented.
Speaker 1:Our jumping off point is in the 41st chapter of Isaiah, verse 13. Well, our jumping off point is in the 41st chapter of Isaiah, verse 13. And I've been thinking some about fear and the effect that fear has on a believer's life, and so I came to this verse and I've been kind of pondering it, and as I've looked at this verse, I've questioned what is the context in which this verse is given? How is God speaking and what is he speaking about? Because it's easy to take a verse like this and just kind of take it off by itself and turn it into whatever we feel like we need in the moment. And it's true that the Word of God can speak to us in all kinds of, in whatever circumstance we find ourselves in. The Word of God is alive, but we have to be careful to make sure that we're treating it with due care. And so I just want to set a little bit of a context for what's happening here and what Isaiah is talking about and what he means when he says fear not. And then we'll talk a little bit about the history and what was going on, what the context is here. In fact it wasn't history when Isaiah was prophesying, it hadn't happened yet. But then now we look back on that and we see Isaiah's prophecy fulfilled in history, and so we'll look at that a little bit and then draw some lessons from it.
Speaker 1:The 40th chapter of Isaiah is a turning point in the book because it goes from the beginning of the book as Isaiah prophesying, under inspiration of the Spirit, about the judgment that God wanted to bring on His people, israel. And we know that God's people have a long and storied history of unbelief and disobedience, god providing for them, and then they doubted, and then he judged them, and he provided for them and they disobeyed, and then he judged them and he brought them back. And it's a constant story whose theme really is God's redemption, not God's judgment. God's judgment is a piece of the picture, but the story is about a redemptive God, and we know that there came a point where Israel began to fall away from God so dramatically and for such a long time, and God sent prophets to warn them. And they ignored the prophets. And by the time Isaiah comes onto the scene, the die has been cast. And God said look, this is what's going to happen. You're going to be judged. I'm going to send the Assyrians and then the Babylonians. And that's exactly what happened. We know from history that the Assyrians came, the Babylonians came and eventually all of the people of Israel, or at least the majority of them, were carted away to Babylon as slaves, and the city of Jerusalem lay in smoldering ruin. God's city, the gem of God's crown, is in ruins and smoking. And God's people who were chosen and who were sent to occupy that land, god says you are my chosen people and I'm going to give you the land that flows with milk and honey and it's going to to be yours forever and I'm going to be your God and you're going to be my people. And now they're slaves in Babylon. So what's up?
Speaker 1:We get a little bit of an insight into the depth of their sorrow in the 137th Psalm, the first few verses of which say by the waters of Babylon. There we sat down and wept when we remembered Zion On the willows we hung up our lyres, for there are captors required of us songs, and our tormentors mirth saying sing us one of your songs of Zion. How shall we sing the Lord's song in a foreign land? So God's people are deep in sorrow, mourning, probably first just mourning their captivity, but then with time beginning to mourn their sin that led them to their captivity. And then in chapter 40 of Isaiah. So the beginning part of Isaiah is all about that judgment. And then in chapter 40 there's a shift and and there's a lot of discussion, biblical scholarship, about exactly what that signifies and what it means and how it happened. But the summary is that chapter 40 and forward is written from the perspective of post -captivity. It's talking about the redemption of Israel, the restoration of Israel, the salvation of Israel and God's plan to carry out purpose that God hasn't given up on, his plan to make Israel his crown jewel, but in fact he's still working that plan. And so that is the context in which we find this verse in Isaiah 41.
Speaker 1:And we're just going to read a little bit. As I said, we're going to kind of just be running through some of these chapters. To kind of just be running through some of these chapters. In the beginning of chapter 41, you can read with me Chapter 40 is where we find the words of a voice crying in the wilderness make straight the way of the Lord, every valley shall be lifted up, every mountain and hill shall be made low. Then verse 41, he says listen to me, everybody, gather up and listen to me.
Speaker 1:Verse 2 starts to get really interesting. He says who stirred up one from the east whom victory meets at every step? He gives up nations before him so that he tramples kings underfoot. He makes them like dust with his sword, like driven stubble with his bow. He pursues them and passes on safely by paths his feet have not trod. Who has performed and done this? Calling the generations? From the beginning, I, the Lord, the first, and with the last, I am he.
Speaker 1:And then verse five and seven detail a little bit about how the people, all of the nations, are afraid of this one who is coming. And then in verse 8 he says but you, israel, my servant Jacob, whom I have chosen, the offspring of Abraham, my friend, you, whom I took from the ends of the earth and called from the farthest corners saying to you you are my servant, I have chosen you, I have not cast you off. Fear not, I am with you. So all of the people are afraid, and it talks about how the blacksmiths and the goldsmiths are coming together to protect themselves from this one who comes and tramples kings underfoot. But, israel, do not be afraid, for I am with you. I am your God. I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous hand. All who are incensed against you shall be put to shame and confounded. You shall seek those who contend with you, and you won't find them. Verse 13, which is our key verse here. For I, the Lord, hold your right hand. It is I who say to you fear not, for I am the one who helps you. Israel's hope lies in who God is, in who God is. That's the hope. It is I who says to you do not be afraid.
Speaker 1:The interesting thing about this we go back to the beginning, in verse 2. I read this and I thought so. Who is this talking about? Who is this? One that comes from the east? And remember, the context here is after Israel has already gone away to be slaves in Babylon, and so what's the context here? And so I did some digging and there are some different perspectives, but generally most scholars, I think, agree that this is talking about Cyrus the Persian emperor. Well, that's kind of confusing. That doesn't seem to fit very well. But if you go later in Isaiah and we're going to see some of these chapters, the prophecies actually call him out by name and use some of the same language. So there's good reason to believe that's what it's talking about.
Speaker 1:Wait a minute, how can this be? What does Cyrus have to do with this? Well, we look back at history and I'm going to skip my slides a little bit because I have them out of order. This is just a picture I found of Cyrus the Great, who was a Persian emperor, and Cyrus was the one who came and conquered Babylon. So the Israelites were slaves in Babylon and Cyrus the Great came and overthrew the Babylonian empire and he was the emperor of the Medes and the Persians and his empire. And now I forget that there's a name of the and I don't remember. I was going to try to remember it and I can't.
Speaker 1:It starts with an A and it's a long word, but the dynasty that he ruled over was, at at the time, the largest empire that the world had ever known. So Cyrus was a very great and powerful man and, interestingly, one of the characteristics of Cyrus' reign was that he was uniquely compassionate I don't know if that's the right word. He was not a brutal ruler the way that many other emperors were, and one of his policies was that he worked hard to preserve the culture and history of the peoples that he conquered. So he would come into a land and, unlike other conquerors who made it illegal to speak of the prior life and they would come in and institute their culture and force everyone to worship their god and so forth. Cyrus was not quite like that. I'm sure there were atrocities that he committed, but generally history remembers Cyrus as a person who was inclined to preserve the culture of the people that he conquered.
Speaker 1:The Bible tells us, and history agrees, that when Cyrus conquered Babylon, he released the Israelites to go back to their homeland. Cyrus was the one that finally, there had been people returning slowly as Babylon was on its downfall. There had been people returning slowly as Babylon was on its downfall, but Cyrus was the one who finally broke the slavery and said go back and occupy your land, okay. So how does that fit in this context? If verse 2 indeed is talking about Cyrus, which it seems to be, then Isaiah 41.2 says who stirred up one from the east, whom victory meets at every step? That fits. Cyrus was a great conqueror. He gives up nations before him so that he tramples kings underfoot. He makes them like dust with his sword, like driven stubble with his bow. So then it goes on to talk about how all the people are afraid of Cyrus. But you, my people, israel, don't be afraid. Because why? Because it is I who says to you fear not, I am the one who helps you. So this is an interesting thing. Because Cyrus?
Speaker 1:I don't have a lot of depth of knowledge about who he was as a person. I did a little bit of reading in preparation, but not at any great depth. But what we know for sure about Cyrus was definitely he was not a Jew or he was not an Israelite. He was not of God's people, right, he was a Gentile. We know for sure that he was not a believer in the God of Israel. He was a pagan and he worshipped other gods. And even though he was not forceful about instituting his religion necessarily, at least not universally he still carried that religion with him, he still introduced that pagan religion into the lands that he conquered. He was not a follower of God's way, he was not a keeper of the law of God, he was not a worshipper of God, he was not a follower of God's way, he was not a keeper of the law of God, he was not a worshiper of God. He was a pagan evil man.
Speaker 1:And so how is it then that the Bible, that Isaiah's prophecy, talks of him with this kind of flowery, favorable language? We can go on. We're going to skip ahead a little bit. I'm going to skip over some things to the 45th chapter of Isaiah. So flip a couple pages and let's go to Isaiah 45. And here we find some more and some very specific language. And this is how we know Isaiah is talking about Cyrus, because it actually calls him out by name In the 45th chapter, verse 1,.
Speaker 1:Thus says the Lord to get this. Thus says the Lord to his anointed Cyrus. Now, isn't that strange? As far as I know, this is the only place in scripture where a man such as Cyrus, an unbelieving man such as Cyrus, is called anointed by God. That's a real contrast, isn't it? Isn't that a paradox that God says I've anointed you for my purpose.
Speaker 1: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 and to open doors before him. That gates may not be closed, god says 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 hordes of secret places that you may know that it is I, the Lord, the God of Israel, who call you by name. Cyrus in effect conquered the whole world, and God says here you're going to know that it's me. It's me 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. For the sake of my chosen. I call you out. I raise you up. Your name. I name you, though you do not know me, for the sake of my chosen. I call you out. I raise you up for my purpose.
Speaker 1:Isn't that powerful? Isn't that amazing? God's not limited. God's not limited to use people that are good enough. There's probably a more eloquent way to say that, but I don't. God will always do what he wants to do, whether we're in line or not. I think that's powerful.
Speaker 1:Give me a minute here to find there's a verse, and I didn't make note of the verse number, so I have to look for it here. Well, I'm not laying my eyes on it. If someone can find this while I'm talking about it and help me with the verse number. I think it's in this same 45th chapter, but I have a missing spot in my notes here. I think it's in this chapter or maybe in a chapter or two following that.
Speaker 1:God says, even while he's talking to Cyrus, he says it is I who create light and darkness. I bring well-being or good. Seven thank you, oh, oh, I was right there. It was right under my nose. Okay, thank you. Yeah, so this is in the same conversation that God's having with Cyrus. I don't know if it's a conversation, it's more of a monologue, but God is saying to Cyrus I'm the one that has raised you up, I'm the one that's called you. It's for my purpose that I have with my chosen people.
Speaker 1:And then he we get this really interesting verse that I think Christians have really wrestled with, probably all through history. It's Isaiah 45.7. He says I form light and create darkness. I make well-being and create calamity. Some versions, many versions, many translations actually use the word evil there. I create good and evil and that can be a little bit confusing. I'm reading from the ESV it says I make well-being and create calamity, and I think we're safe to interpret that word evil there as talking about evil things. Calamity might be a little more clearer there. I don't think that. I think we can probably get off the rails a little bit when we think about God creating evil. That can take us to some pretty weird places, right, but I think in the context here, if we understand what God is doing, so God is raising up a pagan king, emperor, in fact, to create the largest empire the world has ever known.
Speaker 1:This is a guy who doesn't worship God, doesn't even recognize God, and God is saying I am making you what you are so that you can go conquer lands and spread your paganism, and I'm doing it because I have a plan for Israel. Now, israel to Cyrus was a drop in the bucket. They were just a bunch of slaves in another kingdom that he wanted to conquer. Israel didn't really matter to Cyrus. But God says you are who you are because I have a plan for Israel and I'm the one that brings good and calamity. I'm the one who brings good and calamity, I'm the one who brings light and darkness. And then he goes on to talk in verse 9. Woe to him who strives with him, who formed him a pot among earthen pots. Does the clay say to him who forms it, what are you making? Or your work has no handles? Woe to him who says to a father what are you begetting? Or to a woman, with what are you in labor? These questions are criticisms.
Speaker 1:I don't know if any of you have ever experienced throwing pottery on a wheel. I've done just a little bit of it. I'm not a potter, but I've got to experience it a little bit and it's a lot of fun and it really is enjoyable to work with the clay and feel it, respond to the movements of your fingers. The clay on the wheel doesn't get any say in what it becomes. It's true that there is some clay that throws better than other and there is some clay that maybe is not good to be thrown and has to be thrown out or doesn't turn out the way it was supposed to, but in the hands of a master potter, the clay gets no say.
Speaker 1:And so God is saying here to Cyrus you don't get to choose what you are, because I raised you up and I did it for me, not for you. So this is Cyrus and it is in this context, it is in the middle of this, and this is the perspective, this is what's going on. When God says to Israel, then For I, the Lord, your God, hold your right hand. It is I who say to you fear not, I am the one who helps you. And then we can extrapolate that right that God has raised up a pagan emperor to accomplish his purpose. And he said you don't have the right to tell me what to do. I'm God and you're not, and my sovereign purpose will prevail. And at the same time he's saying to Israel I am the one who helps you. It's the same sovereign God who, on one hand, is raising up a pagan king and, at the same time, is redeeming his people to make his name known on the earth. And it's all really for the same purpose. The reason he's doing it is all the same Because, at the end of it, god's purpose in all of this is to demonstrate his glory and his power and make himself known, and that's what it's all about. And so God says who are you to question the way I go about doing my business? That's kind of I mean, that's maybe a little blunt, but that's kind of what God is saying here, and he's saying it both to pagan Cyrus and also to his chosen people Don't question what I'm doing, because I'm God and I'm sovereign.
Speaker 1:I want a couple of takeaways from that portion. God is sovereign over my life and all of the world in ways that I cannot understand. God is sovereign over my life and all of the world in ways that I cannot understand. It's not possible for us to comprehend. I just heard someone recently and I don't remember even where this was. Someone recently pointed out the difference between comprehending God and apprehending God, and I just love that image. To comprehend something is to wrap your arms all the way around it, to encompass it right To comprehend it. We can't comprehend God. We cannot wrap our minds around the greatness of who God is, but what we can do is apprehend God. We can come up to Him and embrace with all that we are and draw into Him. We can apprehend God. That's the best we can do. We cannot understand the ways of God's sovereignty, maybe pieces of it, maybe some insights, but God's sovereignty will always be bigger than we can wrap our minds around.
Speaker 1:And then the second thing, and this is a hard one, this is a really hard one. My perceptions don't define God's goodness. Another way of saying it is I don't get to measure what's good and bad when it comes to what God is doing. That can be really hard, because sometimes we say God, why are you doing this? This is wrong, and sometimes it is. But sometimes God says, no, this is my plan. God sent his own people to be slaves in Babylon, which seemed to contradict everything he had promised from Abraham on. But he says the clay doesn't get to say to the potter what are you doing? That can be really, really hard. I don't know.
Speaker 1:You know it's easy to stand here and talk about this in theoretical terms and look at scripture and say, yeah, we know God is sovereign, but then, when really hard things hit in life, when we lose loved ones, when our family goes through suffering, when we have people in our life that are hating each other and tearing each other down, when there's division, when there's sickness? I don't know. In those times, at least for myself, I don't have the strength and presence of mind to stand back and look at that in my own life, hardships in my own life, and say God is sovereign over this. I mean, I can know it, I can know it in my head, but it's really hard. It's really hard to feel that sometimes Is that a fair way to say it? We can know it, but sometimes it's really hard to really trust that. I don't know what to do with that. I don't know. I don't really have good advice, other than I think the more that we dive into this truth when we're not suffering, the better we will be able to call it to the surface when we are suffering. The stronger we are in the truth of God's Word then, the more durable we become in times of suffering. I just want to finish. I love the nature of the book of Isaiah, it's literary brilliance and the way that he pours and weaves all of these different ideas together, what we see here.
Speaker 1:This is going to be really quick, but turn with me very quickly to verse 42. I'm sorry, chapter 42. Chapter 42 is in the middle of these two things we've talked about. So 41 is where God begins to talk about Israel. It's where we get this verse chapter 42. Chapter 42 is in the middle of these two things we've talked about. So 41 is where God begins to talk about Israel. It's where we get this verse. Fear not, I'm the one who helps you.
Speaker 1:Verse chapter 45 is where God calls out Cyrus by name. In 41, he's talking about Cyrus. In 45, he's talking about Cyrus, and right in the middle is 42, and he begins behold my servant, who I uphold, my chosen, and whom my soul delights. It kind of sounds like he's still talking about the same person, right? It's a similar kind of language. But let's read on. I put my spirit upon him. He will bring forth justice to the nations. He will not cry aloud or lift up his voice or make it heard in the street. That's starting to not sound very much like an emperor. Right, a bruised reed he will not break and a faintly burning wick he will not quench. He will faithfully bring forth justice. This is sounding a lot less like an emperor. And so this is the beauty to me of Isaiah, because here in all of these chapters he's talking about Cyrus, but yet at the same time he's not Because there's this other description that's starting to come in and we're starting to see this blend of it doesn't quite seem to fit, and I don't have either the time or the understanding to dive into all of these chapters and exposit them properly, but I don't think we're doing it a disservice to jump ahead to the end of chapter 52.
Speaker 1:And all those chapters in between that we're jumping over are still kind of talking about the same thing. It's talking about God raising up his servant. He talks about Cyrus, but he also talks about somebody who's suffering and all throughout that, about somebody who's suffering and all throughout that. The theme of all of it is that God is sending someone to rescue his people. He's sending a redeemer to rescue his people according to his own purpose. Isn't that beautiful? And so we find that even Cyrus, an evil pagan king, becomes a type of Christ.
Speaker 1:I can't wrap my head around that. Why would God choose a man like that to illustrate his perfect, just redemption? I don't know the end of chapter 52 in verse 13, behold, my servant shall act wisely. He shall be high and lifted up. He shall be exalted. That could fit Cyrus in Christ right, a high and exalted person. But then listen, as many were astonished at you. His appearance was so marred beyond human resemblance Wait a minute, that's clearly not talking about Cyrus. His appearance was so marred beyond human semblance and his form beyond that of the children of mankind. So he shall sprinkle many nations, kings will shut their mouths because of him, for that which has not been told them, they shall see, and that which they have not heard, they understand.
Speaker 1:And then, of course, we follow into the 53rd chapter, which we're all very familiar with, which talks in great detail about the suffering of Christ. That he was led as a lamb to the slaughter, that everyone rejected him. We rejected him, nobody believed. Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows. Yet we esteemed him, stricken, smitten by God and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities. Upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed.
Speaker 1:God says I, the Lord, your God, hold your right hand. It is I who says to you fear not, I am the one who helps you. So when we stand in this crossroad between incredible suffering and pain and this knowledge of God's sovereignty, and we wrestle to reconcile those two things in our own lives. Here is where we can come to find the way that we pull those truths in tension and hold them both to be true, because God himself bore the weight of our sin In his own person. He demonstrated that sovereignty and suffering somehow, somehow go hand in hand. Somehow in God's plan they go together. And God said this is true, and I'm going to show you by doing it myself. We're not the only ones who suffer. Christ himself suffered, and he did it for us, and so I wish it were possible to give a good explanation for suffering and neatly tie these two things together. And it's not. I don't know how to do that, but I know that we follow a king who himself bore our sins in his body on the tree so that we could be raised to new life in him.
Speaker 1:And that is all wrapped up in this notion of God's perfect plan, which was from the beginning, and even in this time of Isaiah. When God is raising up Cyrus to redeem his people, israel, what's that for? He's paving the way to bring that redemption to the whole earth. God's purpose for Israel is to bring a Redeemer to the earth who will redeem not just Israel, but now all of us. And so there's this beautiful symmetry to what's really kind of an asymmetry. It's almost a discord. It's this beautiful tension between God having a perfect plan and all kinds of things happening that seem to mess up that plan and ruin everything.
Speaker 1:But yet even that, this that Isaiah talks about, I struggle to really understand it. There's so much depth there and I wish that I could really get to the bottom of it. It's just beautiful, and so I hope that you have some time this week to read those chapters from 41 on, through the whole end of the book. I mean, the rest of Isaiah is just wrapping, all of this symbolism about redemption and rescue and salvation and God's servant, and Cyrus is somehow in there, but he's not really the servant.
Speaker 1:Ultimately, we find, as we read through Isaiah, that Cyrus is just a temporary stopping point on the road of God's plan and it comes ultimately to Christ, who is our salvation and the one in whom we find our redemption, and it's through him, through our being part of Christ, that we become heirs of this promise as well. This was a promise given specifically to the people of Israel while they were in captivity. It was given ahead of time, but it was given to them in captivity to give them hope. And we're not the people of Israel and we're not in captivity in Babylon, but in Christ. We inherit the promises of God, and so the kind of God who redeemed his people, the kind of God who fulfilled his promises to Israel, that's the same God that we serve, and he is every bit as faithful, he's every bit as sovereign and he still keeps his promises.
Speaker 1:So I hope that none of you are in deep suffering today. Maybe you are, I don't know If you are. This is the only thing I know to tell you. God says to you fear not, I am the one who helps you. And if you're not in suffering, if you're doing well, then my encouragement to you is dig into this truth, because there's going to come a time you're going to need it. Plant it deeply within your heart so that when those storms come, you're prepared to withstand. Our God, the sovereign God, the creator of the ends of the earth, the one who made everything that is and then redeemed it to himself by his own blood, he is the one who stands on our side, he is the one who helps us. I hope that's an encouragement as much to you as it is to me this morning. God bless you as you grow into the full realization of that truth.