He Is God – part 2
Isaiah 44:24 – 45:25 (45:8-14)
April 7, 2024
This morning we had to leave off in our discussion rather abruptly,
So I’m glad you’ve come back tonight to dive back into this with me.
We are looking at a passage of Scripture were
The overwhelming point is that God is God and there is no other.
God specifically says that 7 times in chapter 45 alone.
It is a call for men to acknowledge that He is God and we are not.
Now in order to make this point,
God has given a revelation of exactly how He has been at work in the world.
We started looking at the first point:
#1 GOD’S MYSTERIOUS WAYS
Isaiah 44:24 – 45:8
I won’t rehash it a lot, but you will remember that at the end of chapter 44 God revealed that He is sovereign over all events.
• If a man’s word stands it’s because God caused it to stand.
• If a man’s word fails it’s because God caused it to fail.
All events are orchestrated by Him.
He can do whatever He wants.
And we saw that He what He is planning to do is clear:
1) JUDAH WILL RETURN (26b)
2) A WILL BE REVEALED (27)
3) A PAGAN WILL RISE (28)
God is going to restore Israel to her land by supernatural means
And He is going to use a pagan king to do it.
That might have been shocking enough,
But what was even more shocking was the way God spoke about this pagan king.
In Isaiah 45:1 God called Cyrus “His anointed”
• It is the Hebrew word for messiah.
• It is the Greek word for christ.
God reveals that He is the One behind the conquest of Cyrus.
THIS IS SHOCKING to those who hear it because Cyrus is a pagan.
And that is when God dropped a shocking statement on us,
Which we want to get back to tonight.
(7) “The One forming light and creating darkness, Causing well-being and creating calamity; I am the LORD who does all these.”
WE MENTIONED HOW
Men typically like to divide all events into two camps; good things and bad things.
• And they like to attribute everything they perceive as good to God
• And they like to attribute everything they perceive as bad to the devil.
And that seems like a good theology as it preserves God’s reputation from having anything bad assigned to Him.
The problem is it leaves us with no real answer for the existence of evil.
Many an atheist has liked to say that the presence of evil
Proves that God cannot be both good and all powerful.
When we run across a verse like Isaiah 45:7
Where God says He ordains light & darkness, well-being & calamity
One might think that the atheist had it right.
They would say, “Aha! See, He might be all powerful but He is not all good. A good God would never ordain darkness or calamity.”
That issue is the dilemma that we are currently wrestling with
As we strive to learn more about God.
First, let me reassure of the goodness of God.
Mark 10:18 “And Jesus said to him, “Why do you call Me good? No one is good except God alone.”
Psalms 84:11 “For the LORD God is a sun and shield; The LORD gives grace and glory; No good thing does He withhold from those who walk uprightly.”
1 Timothy 4:4 “For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with gratitude;”
James 1:17 “Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow.”
Romans 8:28 “And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.”
• God is the epitome of what is good.
• God is the example of what is good.
• God is the giver of what is good.
• God is the promiser of all that is good.
Matthew 7:11 “If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give what is good to those who ask Him!”
GOD IS GOOD.
BUT WHERE WE MAKE OUR MISTAKE
Is in assuming then that God has no part in the expression of bad things.
And yet here God says that He does.
He forms darkness, He causes calamity.
“I am the LORD who does all these.”
And so God now is taking ownership of the circumstances of the day.
• This would include Israel’s being conquered.
• This would include their slavery in Babylon.
• This would include the rise of Cyrus.
• This would include his conquering of nations and approaching Babylon.
And the simple point we are making is that
You cannot excuse God from any circumstance that occurs on earth.
You cannot act as though anything is happening independently of Him.
GOD IS NOT LIKE A MYTHICAL SUPER HERO
Who is just flying around trying to undo evil effects on the world,
But who can’t get to all of them
And so sometimes bad things still happen.
NO, GOD IS SOVEREIGN OVER ALL OF IT.
We marvel that God delivered Israel from Egypt,
But must remember it was God who sent them to Egypt to begin with.
He even told Abraham many years before:
Genesis 15:13 “God said to Abram, “Know for certain that your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not theirs, where they will be enslaved and oppressed four hundred years.”
We marvel that God delivered Israel from the hand of Babylon,
But we must remember it was God who sent them there as well.
And if you want to really ask questions that blow the mind,
“How did Satan even get into the garden?”
It is because God ordained it to be so.
As we said this morning, this DOES NOT MEAN
That God commits evil or causes evil or delights in evil. He does not.
But we do see that God ordains the existence of evil
And that God even uses it for His purposes and His glory.
Now, before we go any further down that trail,
It is also important for you to understand THE END which God has ordained.
For while God does currently cause calamity and use evil
We are NOT left in limbo regarding His will, His plan,
Or the end which He has ordained.
The end is made clear to us.
(8) “Drip down, O heavens, from above, And let the clouds pour down righteousness; Let the earth open up and salvation bear fruit, And righteousness spring up with it. I, the LORD, have created it.”
We know where this is headed.
• Evil doesn’t win.
• Evil doesn’t exist forever.
• The end result is a righteous earth.
• The end result is a creation free from the presence of all evil.
• The end result is fruitful salvation.
God will ultimately bring this about.
But He currently ordains the evil and the good for His purposes.
So let’s stop and swallow that for a moment.
Does God have that right?
Can God do whatever He wants however He wants?
See if you stop and say, “That’s not right!” or “God shouldn’t do that!”
Then you have forgotten the first fundamental.
HE – IS – GOD
Take a lesson from Job
Who, in the midst of his affliction, began to question God’s will and decision making in allowing his affliction.
God then answered Job that he was way out of line and questioning things he ought not question.
Take a lesson from Elijah who ran to the mountain of God to basically tell God He had made a massive mistake.
God then answered Elijah that he was relieved of duty and his replacement would be taking over.
Take a lesson from Peter who pulled Jesus aside to tell him that his plan of the cross was reckless and foolish.
Jesus then answered him that he was doing the work of Satan and needed step back.
AND HERE IS THAT FIRST POINT:
GOD WORKS IN MYSTERIOUS WAYS.
You will never understand why God does all that He does.
You will never understand how God does all that He does.
And He does not approach you to get your approval first.
• He brings good and He brings calamity.
• He raises up godly leaders and He raises up godless leaders.
• He brings light and He brings darkness.
• He heals and He afflicts.
• He raises up and He tears down.
• He honors one and humiliates another.
• He chooses to save one and He judges another.
And the worst problem of humanity
Is when we demand to understand why.
But He owes us no explanation.
• We are not deserving of a reason.
We just know that God is sovereign over everything
Whether we understand it or not.
Can you accept that?
Can you submit to that?
If you can’t you’re going to be in a world of hurt.
Drop the notions of fairness.
Drop your definitions of right and wrong.
Drop your expectations of what should happen.
You aren’t here in an advisory position,
You are here to submit to the One who is God.
Can you swallow that?
Can you submit to that?
God works in mysterious ways.
And that includes raising up a pagan man, calling him a messiah,
And using him to deliver His people.
Now let’s move to the second point tonight.
God’s Mysterious Ways
#2 GOD’S IMPORTANT WARNING
Isaiah 45:9-14
The timing of this verse is obvious.
• Humanity does not like to trust that which they don’t understand.
• We don’t like to submit to that which offends our sense or right and wrong.
We don’t like the thought that God can ordain whatever He wants
And that He can ordain calamity in my life without an explanation.
And mankind since the beginning has been prone to revolt.
• Mankind has been prone to “balk” and cry “Foul!”
• Or the ever famous, “That’s Not Fair!”
SO GOD HAS A WARNING.
(9-10) “Woe to the one who quarrels with his Maker— An earthenware vessel among the vessels of earth! Will the clay say to the potter, ‘What are you doing?’ Or the thing you are making say, ‘He has no hands’? “Woe to him who says to a father, ‘What are you begetting?’ Or to a woman, ‘To what are you giving birth?’”
Talk about a loaded passage!
“Woe to the one who quarrels with his Maker”
If that is all the verse said it would be enough.
We are familiar with Isaiah’s usage of the word “Woe” by now.
• We remember him calling down woe upon himself when he saw the Lord.
That same woe is here applied to anyone
Who quarrels with the One who made Him.
God asked Job:
Job 38:1-2 “Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind and said, “Who is this that darkens counsel By words without knowledge?”
Quarreling with your maker is vile insubordination.
• It is evidence that you have no humility.
• It is evidence that you don’t know your place.
But it gets even worse.
“An earthenware vessel among the vessels of earth!”
Do you understand that?
Who is this that comes arguing with Me?
DIRT!?!
• Would this lump of dirt really come and take issue with Me?
• Would this lump of dirt really come to correct Me?
“Will the clay say to the potter, ‘What are you doing?’ Or the thing you are making say, ‘He has no hands’?”
Whoever heard of such a thing?
Whoever heard of a clay pot on the potters wheel screaming out that the potter didn’t have a clue what he was doing?
Isaiah 29:15-16 “Woe to those who deeply hide their plans from the LORD, And whose deeds are done in a dark place, And they say, “Who sees us?” or “Who knows us?” You turn things around! Shall the potter be considered as equal with the clay, That what is made would say to its maker, “He did not make me”; Or what is formed say to him who formed it, “He has no understanding”?”
It is just unthinkable arrogance and insubordination.
AND YOU’VE HEARD IT BEFORE.
Remember when Paul began to lay out for you the realities of election?
Romans 9:13-18 “Just as it is written, “JACOB I LOVED, BUT ESAU I HATED.” What shall we say then? There is no injustice with God, is there? May it never be! For He says to Moses, “I WILL HAVE MERCY ON WHOM I HAVE MERCY, AND I WILL HAVE COMPASSION ON WHOM I HAVE COMPASSION.” So then it does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs, but on God who has mercy. For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, “FOR THIS VERY PURPOSE I RAISED YOU UP, TO DEMONSTRATE MY POWER IN YOU, AND THAT MY NAME MIGHT BE PROCLAIMED THROUGHOUT THE WHOLE EARTH.” So then He has mercy on whom He desires, and He hardens whom He desires.”
Oh how men hate that passage.
They just hate to read the fact that God hated Esau.
• Poor old Esau, never did anything to God, and then God hated him.
Others go to great lengths to try and explain that this could not be what it means.
• It must mean something else.
• For it would be unjust for God to hate Esau for no reason.
(Well God had a reason, it was called the fall)
But none the less, men cry “foul!” and “that’s not fair!”
And Paul picks up on the argument.
He asks, “There is no injustice with God is there?”
• Are you really asking if God is unjust, just because you can’t understand why
He would do something?
Just because it offends your sense of justice,
That does not mean it is unjust.
Your “justometer” is way out of calibration.
But Paul answers that God is not unjust, and God does things like this all the time.
Take Pharaoh as an example.
• God raised him up and hardened his heart where he could not repent and then
crushed him for his lack of repentance.
And Paul says, “So then He has mercy on whom He desires, and He hardens whom He desires.”
Do you see that?
“The One forming light and creating darkness, Causing well-being and creating calamity; I am the LORD who does all these.”
GOD DOES THIS.
But how does man respond?
They quarrel.
Romans 9:19-21 “You will say to me then, “Why does He still find fault? For who resists His will?” On the contrary, who are you, O man, who answers back to God? The thing molded will not say to the molder, “Why did you make me like this,” will it? Or does not the potter have a right over the clay, to make from the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for common use?”
There you have it!
If God hardens a man then God does not have the right to judge him for being hard.
Really?
Who are you to tell God what He does and doesn’t have a right to do?
Do you see the issue?
It’s all about you knowing your place
And coming into submission under God’s authority.
Stop acting like God owes you an explanation.
Stop acting like God has to run His edicts past you for approval.
HE – IS – GOD
YOU KNOW MY DAD WAS A HORSE TRADER.
He was definitely not a horse whisperer.
But we trained hundreds of horses over the years.
And his training method was very simple – teach that horse submission.
• Some horses were gentle by nature.
• Some horses were rank by nature.
• Dad didn’t care.
Either way, at the end of a day he wanted a horse that was “broke”.
So the method was – find something the horse doesn’t want to do and make him do it. Then make him do it again.
And if that horse fights relentlessly and won’t do it, then you get in the loading shoot for a come to Jesus meeting where dad would say, “That horse needs his attention got.” And granted some of those methods could be a little unorthodox.
I saw him punch horses in the nose, kick them in the belly,
And even pull a pipe gate around to hit them in the nose.
And I know, any animal activist friends are cringing as they listen to this.
• “That’s not fair!”
• “That’s just wrong!”
And if my dad wasn’t already in heaven there might be some
That would like go after him for doing some of those things.
Now, since my dad was a man,
Another man has every right to question his methods.
But do you want to know who didn’t get to question his methods?
The horse.
Dad lived with a fundamental belief
• That he was sovereign over that horse.
• That horse was there to serve and submit and do what it was told,
• And even if his methods seemed unorthodox to the horse it didn’t matter.
• He was the man, the horse was the horse.
Now listen, this cuts to the heart of
The major problem plaguing so much of Christianity today.
We think God is somehow obligated
To operate by our standard of “should” and “shouldn’t”.
We want God to act in such a way
That we can logically defend Him to a skeptical world.
BUT GOD ISN’T TRYING TO PROVE HIMSELF TO A SKEPTICAL WORLD.
He is not trying to convince you.
He is commanding you to bow to Him.
HE – IS – GOD
And He owes you no explanation.
No potter ever has to argue with he clay regarding the purpose for which he will use it.
Jeremiah 18:1-6 “The word which came to Jeremiah from the LORD saying, “Arise and go down to the potter’s house, and there I will announce My words to you.” Then I went down to the potter’s house, and there he was, making something on the wheel. But the vessel that he was making of clay was spoiled in the hand of the potter; so he remade it into another vessel, as it pleased the potter to make. Then the word of the LORD came to me saying, “Can I not, O house of Israel, deal with you as this potter does?” declares the LORD. “Behold, like the clay in the potter’s hand, so are you in My hand, O house of Israel.”
DO YOU GET THE POINT?
Learn your place.
This is part of what God is teaching Israel
By revealing His usage of Cyrus.
He is doing something they don’t understand
Simply for the purpose of teaching them
That as God He can do whatever He wants.
God continues…
(10) “Woe to him who says to a father, ‘What are you begetting?’ Or to a woman, ‘To what are you giving birth?’”
Now we have
• An infant being born, and as soon as it comes out of the womb it looks at the father and says, “What were you thinking?”
• And then it looks to the mother and says, “You have no idea what you are doing!”
And do we not have people arrogantly ask God,
“Why did You make me like this?”
As though God made some kind of mistake
When he knit you together in your mother’s womb.
“Well, it’s not fair that I should be short, or fat, or slow, or shy, or bald, or black, or white, or Hispanic, or…” whatever.
And God would look at you and say,
• “Do you remember when I asked you what you wanted to look like?”
• “Do you remember when I asked when you wanted to be born?”
• “Do you remember when I asked if you wanted to be male or female?”
Exactly!
I didn’t!
God made you as it pleased Him to make.
He made you for His purposes and for His glory.
And in Romans 9 Paul says
That some were made for to glorify God through their salvation
And others were made to glorify God through their destruction.
And if you cry, “That’s not fair!”
THEN GO READ VERSES 9 AND 10 AGAIN.
HE – IS – GOD!
He defines what fair is.
He defines what good is.
He is not on trial before you and He never will be.
You had better learn your place.
• This is the very beginning of what it means to have a “fear of the LORD”
• This is the very beginning of humility
It is unthinkable that the dirt would argue with God.
It is unthinkable that the created would argue with the Creator.
So before you go to complaining
Let God just stop and give you a warning real quick…DON’T.
JUST ASK JOB.
SO WHAT DO WE DO?
HOW CAN WE RESPOND?
(11-12) “Thus says the LORD, the Holy One of Israel, and his Maker: “Ask Me about the things to come concerning My sons, And you shall commit to Me the work of My hands. “It is I who made the earth, and created man upon it. I stretched out the heavens with My hands And I ordained all their host.”
• You cannot quarrel with God.
• You cannot question God.
• You cannot argue with Him.
BUT WHAT CAN YOU DO?
“Ask Me about the things to come concerning My sons…”
Don’t question His authority or His motives,
BUT YOU CAN ASK HIM WHAT HE IS DOING.
Jeremiah 33:3 “Call to Me and I will answer you, and I will tell you great and mighty things, which you do not know.”
God is not interesting in explaining His decision making process to you or why He uses the methods He is using,
But He will gladly reveal to you the plan He has for His sons.
SO ASK HIM.
Not “Why?”, but “What?”
God, what is Your will for Your children in this?
God, what would You have us do in this circumstance?
Feel free to ask, just maintain submissive reverence when you do.
“And you shall commit to Me the work of My hands.”
In other words, “You can ask Me, but acknowledge My work when you do.”
• Come to Me in reverence and humility.
• Come to Me in submission and faith.
• Acknowledge that I am at work
• That I am working according to My perfect wisdom,
• And then you can ask Me what I am doing.
And again we are reminded of our place and His place.
“It is I who made the earth, and created man upon it. I stretched out the heavens with My hands And I ordained their host.”
• Don’t get too big for your britches.
• Don’t forget who you are and who I am.
• You may approach Me but remember who I am.
And here God determines to go ahead and answer
The question that is on their mind.
The question is: WHAT ARE YOU DOING WITH CYRUS?
And here is God’s answer:
(13) “I have aroused him in righteousness And I will make all his ways smooth; He will build My city and will let My exiles go free, Without any payment or reward,” says the LORD of hosts.”
God says that “I have aroused him in righteousness”
It DOES NOT mean that Cyrus was righteous
Or that he even had righteous motives.
It MEANS that all that God is doing through him is righteous.
God will cause him to send Israel home, rebuild their city,
And he will do it absolutely free of charge.
Are you serious?
• Nobody does anything free of charge.
• Nobody does something for nothing.
• Especially not a pagan.
Well he will.
(14) “Thus says the LORD, “The products of Egypt and the merchandise of Cush And the Sabeans, men of stature, Will come over to you and will be yours; They will walk behind you, they will come over in chains And will bow down to you; They will make supplication to you: ‘Surely, God is with you, and there is none else, No other God.’”
God says that it will basically be the Egyptians and the Ethiopians and the Sabeans who will pay for the city and the temple to be rebuilt.
Ezra 1:1-4 “Now in the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, in order to fulfill the word of the LORD by the mouth of Jeremiah, the LORD stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia, so that he sent a proclamation throughout all his kingdom, and also put it in writing, saying: “Thus says Cyrus king of Persia, ‘The LORD, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth and He has appointed me to build Him a house in Jerusalem, which is in Judah. ‘Whoever there is among you of all His people, may his God be with him! 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. ‘Every survivor, at whatever place he may live, let the men of that place support him with silver and gold, with goods and cattle, together with a freewill offering for the house of God which is in Jerusalem.’”
That is a great command, but who is going to pay for it?
Ezra 6:3 “In the first year of King Cyrus, Cyrus the king issued a decree: ‘Concerning the house of God at Jerusalem, let the temple, the place where sacrifices are offered, be rebuilt and let its foundations be retained, its height being 60 cubits and its width 60 cubits; with three layers of huge stones and one layer of timbers. And let the cost be paid from the royal treasury.”
Not only did Cyrus give them permission to go home and rebuild, he paid for it out of the royal treasury.
Do you know whose money was in that royal treasury?
It was the spoil of Egypt, Ethiopia, and the Sabeans.
What you have here is God revealing that
He is in total control of the situation.
AND THAT INCLUDES A LOOK TO THE FUTURE
When Egyptians and Ethiopians and Sabeans
Will all come to Israel to make supplication to them.
This is has not yet happened, but it will.
Zechariah 8:23 “Thus says the LORD of hosts, ‘In those days ten men from all the nations will grasp the garment of a Jew, saying, “Let us go with you, for we have heard that God is with you.”’”
SO WHAT IS GOD DOING?
The answer is, He is saving Israel
And He is doing it in such a way that all men will know
That He alone is God.
How else can you explain
• A pagan conqueror
• Giving up his slaves,
• Sending them home,
• Rebuilding their capitol and their temple,
• And paying for it?
You can’t.
And now we realize that if we ever did question what God was doing,
WE SHOULDN’T HAVE.
He knew exactly what He was doing.
He always does.
He has never asked us to understand what He is doing,
He has asked us to trust what He is doing.
It is that simple lesson that must be learned.
HE – IS – GOD and we are not.
AND HOW APPLICABLE THIS IS EVEN TO OUR WORLD RIGHT NOW.
It is crazy out there.
We are scheduled to have an election in November.
• We have a vile immoral man in office
• Running against a man who has proven to be a pagan his entire life.
• One makes no bones about opposing Christianity.
• The other gives lip service to Christianity but some of his decisions and
behavior make us very skeptical.
I told someone the other day that
“If everything I read on the internet about Donald Trump is true then he might be the anti-christ. And my other option is Joe Biden who is definitely anti Christ.”
But what if I told you that Joe Biden is president by God’s doing?
Regardless of what happens in November, that will be God’s doing too?
HOW DO I KNOW?
Because He is sovereign over all things.
SO HOW DO WE RESPOND?
We don’t argue with God, we don’t question God, we submit to God.
AND WE DO SO WITH THE CONFIDENCE
That God has already revealed that He will save His people.
We know where it is all headed.
We know how it ends.
But it just may be that THE LESSON of the day is that we learn.
HE – IS – GOD
I want to close tonight with a very fitting Psalm.
TURN TO: PSALMS 46
And there it is.
• You may not understand all the chaos.
• You may not understand the hardship.
• But rest assured God has not abandoned His people.
So, “Cease striving and know that I am God”
