Alright, we'll be in Isaiah 45.
We're going to look at these first six verses. Are you in a prison this morning? Do you sit in darkness? Darkness of doubt. Darkness of
unbelief. Your hands become shackled so
you can't reach forth. Your feet become bound and chained
so that you can't take a step. You see the light outside the
window, but you can't do anything but just admire the joy of those
that are free. You can't seem to free yourself
into the bliss and the freedom of the faithful. That was the
case with God's elect remnant. They were in bondage in Babylon. They were there because their
own sin and their own unbelief. They simply would not believe
God, simply would not take God at His word. Babylon represents
falsehood. The scriptures tell us in Revelation
17, 5, upon her forehead was a name written, Mystery, Babylon
the Great, the mother of harlots and abominations of the earth.
And I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints and with
the blood of the martyrs of Jesus." Babylon is the harlot, the falsehood,
abominations to God. All God's elect, all those that
God shall save by His grace, all those Christ has redeemed
by His blood, came into the bondage of Babylon in Adam, when we fell
in Adam. God allowed it for the same exact
reason that He allowed Babylon to be taken Judah to be taken
captive by Babylon, that by sending forth the Deliverer, Christ Jesus
His own Son, He might get honor and glory to His own name. So
that when the elect child of God is called by His grace, we
give glory and honor to God our Savior, to Christ Jesus our Lord. A man won't do that till he realizes
how much bondage he's in, how much bondage God has saved him
from. I titled the message this morning,
Loosening the Loins, Opening the Gates. Let's read these first
six verses. Thus saith the Lord to his anointed,
to Cyrus, whose right hand I have holden, to subdue nations before
him. And I will loose the loins of
kings, to open before him the two-leaved gates, and the gates
shall not be shut. I will go before thee, and make
the crooked places straight. I will break in pieces the gates
of brass, and cut and sunder the bars of iron. and I will
give thee the treasures of darkness and hidden riches of secret places,
that thou mayest know that I, the Lord, which call thee by
thy name, am the God of Israel. For Jacob my servant's sake,
and Israel mine elect, have I even called thee by thy name. I have
surnamed thee, though thou hast not known me. I am the Lord,
and there is none else. There is no God beside me. I
girded thee, though thou hast not known me, that they may know
from the rising of the sun and from the west that there is none
beside me. I am the Lord, and there is none
else. I want to show you three things
here. First of all, I want you to see that salvation is accomplished
by Christ Jesus. Secondly, I want you to see the
salvation of an individual sinner. And thirdly, we'll see why God
saves individual sinners. First of all, salvation by Christ,
by Christ Jesus. Verse 1, he said, Thus saith
the Lord to his anointed Cyrus. Cyrus was a king in Persia. That's
what we consider today as Iran. And he wasn't even around Israel. He wasn't even around Judah.
He was completely from another world. He was not from their
world. He wasn't from that area where
they were at all. And he was He was called of God,
God's anointed, and he stands here as a picture of the Lord
Jesus Christ, an example, a type of the Lord Jesus Christ who
came from heaven's glory down to where his people are to save
us out of Babylonian captivity, out of the captivity of sin and
death. Verse 1 says he's the Lord's anointed. Christ Jesus
is God's chosen. He's God's anointed. He's God's
shepherd, the Messiah. Simeon, we saw last week, said,
I've seen thy salvation. That's who he is. Verse 2, he
says, whose right hand I have holden to subdue nations before
him. You see, Christ is God the Son. So that everything that God did,
everything that Christ did, God was doing it. You understand
that? He says here, I'm holding your
hand. We see here, first of all, that
God the Son is God with us. It's Christ with us. Let me read
you 2 Corinthians 5.19. God was in Christ. God was in
Christ. reconciling the world unto himself,
not imputing their trespasses unto them, and have committed
unto us the word of reconciliation. And then Christ as man, Christ
who is the righteous servant of God came forth, and he as
a man in the place of his people, he depended upon God. He believed God and trusted God.
You say, I can't enter into that how that he is the second person
in the Trinity and at the same time he's man who trusted God.
Well, he is. That's what the Scripture said.
So that everything he did, God held his hand and God God directed
him and protected him. There was absolutely no obstacle
that could hinder Christ Jesus, our Redeemer. There was absolutely
nothing that was going to stand and resist our liberator, the
one who came to take us out of bondage. There was absolutely
no power that could keep him from setting his people free
and rebuilding the house that sin had destroyed. There's absolutely
no way. We died in a man, Adam, God's
people have to be redeemed in a man, Christ. That's the case. You're going to be standing one
or the other. And there is no power that can
resist Him. Look back at Isaiah 42, 4. Isaiah
42, 4. He shall not fail, nor be discouraged,
till he hath set judgment in the earth, and the isles shall
wait for his law. He shall not fail. He shall set
judgment in the earth. Right now we have a bunch of
politicians who are trying to get an endorsement. They want
to be endorsed. They want to be the one that
everybody's looking to. Well, Christ Jesus the Lord had
the endorsement of heaven. He had the endorsement of heaven's
glory. Whenever he was baptized and entered into his public ministry,
the Holy Spirit of God, God the Holy Spirit descended upon him
like a dove. And God the Father spoke from
heaven and said, this is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased,
hear him. And nobody ever had that endorsement. Nobody ever had that. That's
who He is. God has given the nations before
Him. God has made Christ to rule over
kings. That's who He is. He says here,
verse 1, and I will loose the loins of kings. Christ conquered
all of His enemies. And that means all of the enemies
of His people. All of our captors, all of those
that held us captive, Christ conquered. He conquered all.
He says, I loose the loins of kings. Whenever Belshazzar, he
was in the kingdom and he saw the writing on the wall and it
says his countenance changed and his thoughts troubled him
so that the joints of his loins were loosed and his knees began
to smite against one another. You remember we were looking
last week whenever Christ the Lord was born into this earth.
Here's a king. There was a King Herod. A man,
a full-grown man, sitting on the He was the king in Judah,
in Jerusalem. And that man was troubled exceedingly
when he heard that there was a baby born who was born the
king and the savior of Israel. He was troubled exceedingly with
it. And the fact of the matter is, Satan, I've tried to show
this to you before. We looked at how that that Christ,
in a sense, He said He's going to be for... He's going to be
for a snare. He's going to be for a bait,
a trap. And He's going to be for... Many
are going to be taken in Him. Really and truly, when Christ
walked this earth, God loosened the loins, the inner heart of
kings to do exactly what was in their heart to do toward Christ. For the purpose of putting Christ
Jesus on the cross. For the purpose that his son
would be crucified and slain on the cross. He loosed the loins
of kings and permitted his son to be slain by them. Look at
Acts 4.26. Let me just show you that. Acts
4.26. When it says here in our text
in Isaiah, when it says that I make peace and create evil,
it's not that God is the creator of sin. It's not that God is
the creator of evil in that sense. Man is the originator of sin.
Satan is the originator of sin and man, fallen man. God just
lets man, when it serves His purpose, He just lets man do
what's in his heart to do. In that sense, the evil is created. It's man that does the creating
of the evil. Look at Acts 4.26. The kings of the earth stood
up and the rulers were gathered together against the Lord and
against His Christ. For of a truth against thy holy
child Jesus whom thou hast anointed. You see, He's anointed. That's
what we see in a picture of Cyrus. Both Herod and Pontius Pilate
with the Gentiles and the people of Israel, they were all gathered
together. The scribes and the Pharisees
sought how they might destroy Him. The most religious men sought
how they might destroy Him. And eventually they all conspired
together and they nailed Christ Jesus the Lord to a tree. They
nailed Him to a tree, crucified Him. But look at what they did,
verse 28, for to do whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel determined
before to be done. All that came about because he
loosed the loins of kings before Christ Jesus. Be sure to get
what I'm saying. God is in control at all time,
all time. God Himself loosed the loins
so that with their own wicked hands Christ was crucified. But
doing so, Christ busted the head of His captors wide open. That
was the whole purpose, to crush their head. Look at verse 2,
back in our text, Isaiah 45-2. He says, I'm sorry, verse 1. He says,
to open before him the two-leaved gates, and the gates shall not
be shut. You've got to picture Babylon. Here's Babylon, and it's all
surrounded by these huge walls. I think I read somewhere where
they said something like six or seven chariots could run abreast,
side by side, on the tops of the walls of Babylon. That's
thick. That's like a... You picture
it like like the Jersey Turnpike. More like up there where it gets
up towards the city where it's seven lanes. It was a huge wall
around this place and it had huge gates that couldn't be penetrated. They couldn't be broken. They
couldn't be gotten into. That's how captive sinners are. That's how captive sinners are.
The gates of hell, brethren, are to defend hell. They're to keep Christ out. They're
to try to keep the truth out and try to keep God's people
captive inside. That's what those gates are for.
And the Scripture says that He came forth and by being made
sin for his people by Christ purging his elect from all their
sin, by redeeming us from all iniquity. Hebrews 2.14 says,
through death he destroyed him that had the power of death,
that is the devil, and delivered them who through fear of death
were all their lifetime subject to bondage. All that could happen
for us if Christ hadn't come forth and done this work is the
same thing, the only thing that could have happened for those
children of Judah. They had to stay in Babylon.
There wasn't any way they could get out. There was no way they
could free themselves. They were shackled. They were
chained. They were bound. They could look up and see the
heavens, but there was no way they could get there. There was
no way they could get back to Jerusalem. No way they could
get out. But this is what the Scripture says of Christ. Look
at Matthew 16. If you want to turn there, let
me read this to you. By His finished work on the cross,
this is what He said to Peter. He forced the gates of hell wide
open for His elect remnant. And He says in Matthew 16, 18,
I say also unto thee that thou art Peter, and upon this rock...
Listen, He's talking to Peter and He's telling Peter, I'm doing this work, that's what
Christ is telling him. Upon this rock, Christ the rock,
he says, I will build my church and the gates of hell shall not
prevail against it. He's opened the two-leaved gates
and entered in. This is what He did in verse
2, back in our text. He says, I will go before thee
and make the crooked places straight. I will break in pieces the gates
of brass and cut and sunder the bars of iron. Christ made the
crooked sin and unrighteousness of His people to be absolutely
taken away. And He replaced all that with
absolute perfection. righteousness. He magnified the
law and made it honorable." The Lord was talking about Cyrus
when he made this statement back here and he was talking about
Christ truly when he said in Isaiah 42, 21, the Lord is well
pleased for his righteousness sake. He will magnify the law
and make it honorable. How did Cyrus do that? In the
sense that Cyrus actually did everything the Lord said he would
do. Because the Lord was with him, the Lord brought him forth
and he did everything that the Lord said he would do. He magnified
God's law, his word, and made it honorable. That's what Christ
came forth and did. He fulfilled everything this
book says. He fulfilled everything the law
says. He justified his people from
all iniquity, from the sin that we are. He justified us completely. So that there is no more sin
to be laid to the charge of his people. The crooked places have
been made straight. All the bars and the gates, he's
cut asunder and removed. Christ has. This is what he says
back in Isaiah 45, 3. And I will give thee the treasures
of darkness and the hidden riches of secret places. whenever Cyrus
came into that place, there was all these vessels and all this
treasure that the king of Babylon had stolen and taken into Babylon
for himself. You know who the treasures are?
Christ's treasures are His people. His treasures are His elect people.
His spoils that He gets, His reward He gets for saving His
people from their sin are all His people. Cyrus came into that
place and took all those treasures out of those dark places where
they were hidden away by the king of Babylon. He took them
all back. Christ's elect children are the
treasure God's given to Christ His Son. We were hidden in Babylon. We were in darkness and in secret
places, but Christ found us. And He's been... His believers
are the spoils of His victory. Now that's some Savior, isn't
it? That's what God's been saying all through this book of Isaiah.
He's picturing Christ to come. And He's doing it here through
Cyrus. Now, how does that apply to you sitting here? Well, how do you think Let's just look
at it this way. Look at this. I want to show you now the salvation
of an individual sinner. Now we're going to look at Cyrus
again. We're going to look at Cyrus again. And we're going
to consider Cyrus now as he is just a sinner, just like me and
you. Now look at what God says to
him. Thus saith the Lord to his anointed to Cyrus. He's talking
to Cyrus. And this is what he tells him.
Look down at verse 3. I will give thee the treasures
of darkness and hidden riches of secret places. Why? Why was God going to do that
to Cyrus? That thou, that you Cyrus, may
know that I, the Lord, which call thee by thy name, am the
God of Israel. I'm doing this that you may know,
Cyrus. that you may know I'm the God
of Israel. Look down at verse 4. Look at the second part. I have even called thee by thy
name. I have surnamed thee. That word
surname means anointed you. I anointed you. Though you didn't
even know me. You didn't even know who I was.
Look down at verse 5. I'm the Lord and there is none
beside me. I girded you, I clothed you,
I robed you, though you didn't even know me. You see, before
we ever heard a thing about God, before we ever heard, Cyrus was
out there in a land of idolatry. He was out there outside of Judah. God hadn't even given the people
in His neck of the woods, He hadn't even given them anything,
any of the oracles of God. They didn't know who God was.
They didn't know God had spoken to His people. They didn't know
God had given the Law of Mount Sinai. They didn't know anything
at all that God had done just to this one people in Israel.
They didn't know who He was. They had no idea. And that's
what you are born into this world. You don't have any idea who God
is. They had gods. It doesn't take
anybody coming and teaching a man anything for him to have some
understanding that there is a God. That he owes something to him. That there is a God that is to
be worshipped. There's men in countries, you
can travel this world over. You might find places where there's
not civilization. You might find places where people
don't have the civilized things that we have. But one thing you
won't ever find is a people that don't have a God. You won't find
that. Man can make up a God and he
knows, he knows somebody created him and he knows there's something
that he owes to somebody. And he knows what's wrong and
what's right without even having the law of God given to him. You find somebody in the remotest
jungle somewhere, you steal their chicken, they know you stole
their chicken. And it ain't right you stole
their chicken, that's their chicken. Man knows it's wrong. Man knows
what's right and what's wrong in his heart. But man don't know
a thing about God unless God comes and reveals himself in
his heart. He don't know who the true and living God is. He
said, before you even knew me, when you didn't even know who
I was, I did all this for you. You see, before God made anything,
before God even made a world and let you know that the world
even existed and brought us into the world, God put a people in
Christ Jesus. He put them in Christ before
the foundation of the world. Go home and read Ephesians chapter
1. And just listen to what it said. Blessed be the God and
Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath done what? Paul said,
and Paul's speaking to men and women who'd been called by him,
men and women who'd been called and knew who he was. He said,
blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who
hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places. in Christ before the foundation
of the world, before He ever made anything. That's what He
told Cyrus here. He's saying this 200 years before
any of this came about. And He's saying, Cyrus, I girded
you. I called you. I anointed you
before ever you even knew anything about Me. In the season of His
power, God comes. The Spirit of God enters into
His child. And just like He broke down the
gates around Babylon when He went to the cross and laid down
His life, He comes in and He breaks down the gates and the
bars in our own heart. He binds the strong man, Satan,
whose power and influence you're born into this world under. He
binds him and He enters in and He does a work of grace in the
heart. Look at Isaiah 42, 7. This is why He came forth. to open the blind eyes, to bring
out the prisoners from the prison and them that sit in darkness
out of the prison house. Look at Isaiah 49 verse 9. This
is what Christ does when He works the work of grace in the heart.
that thou mayest say to the prisoners, this is what Christ says to the
prisoners, go forth. And to them that are in darkness,
show yourselves. They shall feed in the ways,
and their pastures shall be in all high places. This is what
Christ does when He comes. He comes to a sinner, and you're
sitting there in darkness. in complete and total darkness.
You're sitting there shackled. You're sitting there bound in
your own vain imagination and own thoughts and light enters
in and the Spirit of God enters in and He says, show yourselves. And when He says, show yourselves,
we're going to show ourselves. We're going to come forth to
Him. and confess what we are to Him. Nothing but sin. Absolute
rebelling against God. And when He does, He's going
to speak peace into the heart. And say, I've done something
for you before you ever even knew it. Verse 4. He says to
us, when He works that work of grace, He says to us, I called you. I called you by
name. He says, I've surnamed you, I've
anointed you, I've girded you, I've clothed you in the righteousness
of My Son. I'm the one that's leading you
out of Babylon into My Jerusalem. And He gives, when He does that,
He gives to His child all the hidden riches that have been
in secret places. All the riches that have been
in darkness and hidden from Him. He opens those riches to them.
And you know what those riches are? the unsearchable riches
of Christ Jesus the Lord. He makes us to see that the whole
work has been accomplished by His wisdom, not ours, by His
righteousness, not ours, by His holiness, not ours, by His redemption,
delivering us out of captivity, not by us doing anything of ourselves. How foolish would it have been
for those folks that were in Babylon in captivity, how foolish
would it have been for them to have been freed out of captivity
out of Babylon and said, oh, we freed ourselves. Wouldn't that be ignorant? Think
of a man in prison, sitting there in prison on death row. and a
governor gives him a pardon, and a jailer comes and opens
his cell, and the warden comes and says, here's all your clothes,
everything, restored it back to you. Here, go, go home now. Not only that, the state's bought
you a house. We bought you a vehicle. We're
paying the rest of your debts off. We're paying your way from
here on to the end of your life. Everything's paid for, everything's
done. Wouldn't it be ignorant for that
man to walk out there and say, Look what I did for myself. He promises each of his redeemed
children what he said here to Cyrus. He said, your right hand,
I'm going to hold it. He said, verse 1, I'm going to
subdue nations before you. I'm going to loose the loins
of kings. I'm going to open before you all the gates and they won't
be shut. I'm going to go before you and
make crooked places straight. I'm going to break all the gates
of brass and cut in center the bars of iron. Why does God save
in this way? Why does He do it this way? Look
at verse 3. that thou mayest know that I,
the Lord, which call thee by thy name, am the God of Israel."
That's why. That's why. Verse 5, he said,
I'm the Lord and there's none else. You see, to truly know
that the Lord is salvation, to truly believe God, truly have
faith that rests in God, is to know and to understand and to
believe God is the one that does the saving, all of it, beginning
to end. And if we don't believe that,
if we believe there's some little something we did for ourselves,
some little something we did to merit it, some something we
did by our will, we don't know God. Don't know God. That's the truth
of this thing. When God saves, He makes the
sinner know, I'm the one that did it. I'm the one that did
it. That you may know. Everybody
here that has truly been called by God, we know this. This is
what we know. All the glory goes to God because
He raised us up in righteousness. He did it all right. every bit
of it. He did it the right way according
to His holiness and His righteousness. Look back in Isaiah 41-2. This is speaking of Cyrus. Look
at him. Look what he calls him. He says,
I raised up the righteous man from the east and gave the nations
before him and made him rule over kings. And he gave them
as the dust to his sword and as driven stubble to his bow.
God said, I've done that. Reverend, believe God. Believe God. Our enemies are
already conquered. Christ has conquered all of them.
The way only appears to be rough when we look at it with our natural
eyes. When we're looking at Christ
with the eye of faith, the way is just as plain. It's done. It's done. He's done everything.
What about all the enemies we face in this world? Dust to our
sword and driven stubble to our bow. Dust to our sword and driven
stubble to our bow. Why? Were his sheep accounted
for the slaughter? Nope. Paul said no. No. In all these things, we're more
than conquerors through Christ. More than conquerors through
him that loved us. Why did God do all that? Why did God do all
that? Why did He call Cyrus like that? Why did He reveal in him this
glory and this greatness? Why did He call you? What reason
is it that God calls you and does all this for you and reveals
all this in that new heart He's made in you? Why does He do that
for a sinner? He said, I did it for Jacob,
my servant's sake, and Israel, mine elect. He told Cyrus, that's
why I called you by name. That's why I anointed you. I
did it for Jacob, my servant's sake, and Israel, mine elect. God saves every individual sinner
that he saves. Every one of his individual elect
chosen sinners, he saves them to use us to further his gospel
for the saving of his elect who are yet in Babylonian captivity. That's why he does it. Why did
God send forth his son? Why did he send forth Christ?
The Son of Man came not to be ministered unto. but to minister
and to give his life a ransom for many." Why did he call Cyrus? Why did he say, I've called you
and revealed myself in you? Why did he say that of him? He
said, for Jacob, my servant's sake, and Israel, mine elect's
sake. That's why He sent forth Christ.
That's why He calls every individual child He calls. God saves us,
brethren, to set forth His Word because that's how He's going
to call out His people and build His temple. And I want you to
see something in Ezra, back in Ezra 1. Back to your left. Ezra chapter 1. Go back past
Psalms, past Job, back to Ezra. And as God does this as Christ
has called us to do this. Christ Jesus, listen to me now,
Christ Jesus gets the glory for providing everything. Now who
got all the glory? Who's going to get all the glory
for making his child righteous and holy? Christ's going to get
all the glory. Who's going to get the glory
for providing everything we need in this earth to set forth His
name? Christ is. Christ is. I'm not
going to get any glory for that. And no man's going to get any
glory for that. Christ's going to get all the glory for that.
Let me show you something here. Christ, let me just say this
to you before we read this. Christ has the charge of the
storehouse. He has the charge of the storehouse,
just like Pharaoh gave Joseph charge of the storehouse so that
he could dole out everything that was needed to the children.
Well, Christ has the charge of the storehouse to provide all
our provision for the building of his house. God didn't give
the temporal riches of the spoils directly into the hand of his
children. He gave them to Cyrus. He said, I'm giving to you the
hidden treasures. And He gave them all to Cyrus. He gave them
all to Christ. This whole earth belongs to Christ.
He bought the whole thing, lock, stock, and barrel. He owns it.
It's His. Everything is His. He gave everything
into the hand of Cyrus. But when the time came to build
the temple, the riches were in Cyrus' hand to give to the children. That's a picture of Christ receiving
all the glory for providing all that we need in this work. That's
the purpose that he called Cyrus for. He said, I've called him
because my temple's going to be built. I called him because
my Jerusalem's going to be built. The decayed places, the waste
places are going to be built up. God's going to call out every
one of his elect sheep. He's going to build his house.
And while he's doing that and using me and you who have no
power, He's stirring us up by this gospel, by His Spirit, to
come together, to be used of God, to do everything that's
needful in this earth, to build His house. And while we're doing
that, Christ is providing everything we need, every temporal provision
we need to do it. Let's see it. I'm going to read
11 verses here. Now, in the first year of Cyrus,
king of Persia, that the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah
might be fulfilled. Jeremiah was a prophet like Isaiah
and he said the same thing. The Lord stirred up the spirit
of Cyrus, king of Persia, that he made a proclamation throughout
all his kingdom and put it also in writing, saying, Thus saith
Cyrus, king of Persia, the Lord God of heaven. See, Cyrus called
him the Lord God of heaven. He said, The Lord God of heaven
hath given me all the kingdoms of the earth. This is a picture
of Christ here. God's given Christ all the kingdoms
of the earth. He's charged me to build Him
a house at Jerusalem, which is in Judah. God has charged Christ
to build His house. Who is there among you of all
His people? His God be with Him. And let
Him go up to Jerusalem, which is in Judah, and build the house
of the Lord God of Israel. He is the God which is in Jerusalem. You see, they're delivered now.
They're out of captivity now. And he calls them, he says, now
go up and build a temple. I know spiritually, brethren,
we are the temple of God. And he's going to call each one
of his elect children, and they are his temple. And those he
was calling among them to do this, many of them there were
his elect people who he was building together as his temple. But he
called them literally to go put some stones together and build
up a house. where He's going to set forth
His name and His glory. And whosoever remaineth in any
place where He sojourneth, whoever staying behind and not going
up with them, let the men of his place help him with silver
and with gold and with goods and with beasts beside the freewill
offering for the house of God that is in Jerusalem. He called
on Him and said, I give extra, give everything extra to do this
work. Then rose up the chief of the fathers of Judah, and
Benjamin, and the priests, and the Levites, with all them,"
look at this, "...whose spirit God had raised." You see, man
can't raise another man's spirit to do this. God can though. God
can. "...and everyone whose spirit
God raised up, to go up to build the house of the Lord which is
in Jerusalem. And all they that were about them, strengthened
their hands with vessels of silver, with gold, with goods, with beasts,
and with precious things, beside all that was willingly offered.
And when they did that, when they started doing that, look
what Cyrus did. Picture Christ. Now look what
Cyrus did. Also Cyrus the king brought forth the vessels of
the house of the Lord, which Nebuchadnezzar had brought forth
out of Jerusalem." Those vessels that God said, I'm giving you
all the treasures and all the vessels are hidden places. Cyrus
brought those forth, which he had put in the house, which Nebuchadnezzar
had put in the house of his gods. Even those did Cyrus, king of
Persia, bring forth by the hand of Meredoth the treasurer and
numbered them under Shezbazar, the prince of Judah. And this
is the number of them. These folks had some, they had
a little bit, they had a little few thing, and they heard this
voice, and they heard they were stirred up in spirit, and they
gave what they had to do this. And as they did, Cyrus, the king,
the picture of Christ, just gave them in abundance. Watch this.
And this is the number of them, number of the things he gave,
30 chargers of gold, 1,000 chargers of silver, 9 and 20 knives, 30
basins of gold, silver basins of a second sort, 410, and other
vessels, 1,000. All the vessels of gold and silver
were 5,400. All these did Shebazer bring
up with him of the captivity that were brought up from Babylon
unto Jerusalem. You see who provided all that?
The king did. The king did. Well, that's the... Why doesn't God give all the
temporal blessings into the hands of his children? Why didn't he
do that? Why don't he do that first? Why
didn't he do that first? Because riches are deceitful.
That's why. Plenty has never done anything
but wait on more plenty. That's all plenty ever did. Plenty
just waits on more plenty. We would trust our plenty and
not trust Christ. The rich young ruler, he was
too rich to follow Christ. That's why he didn't follow him.
He was rich in temporal riches. He was rich in youth. Ah, there'd
be tomorrow. He was rich in religion. He was
content with everything that he had, thought he had. We always
want to be content with Christ, not content with ourselves. And
we always want to follow Christ in the work He's given us to
do, putting off everything else that's a cumbrance and that'll
trip us up. Because it's easier for a camel
to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter
the kingdom of God. They looked at the Lord when
He said that, and they said, who then can be saved? Because
me and you, Every one of us feel like we are increased with goods
and have need of nothing. That's what we feel like in our
flesh. And we don't realize how we need everything at the hand
of our King, everything at the hand of Christ, everything at
His hand. I was talking with Brother Paul
Mangan the other day, and we were talking about dogs. And
he said, you know, a dog, he said, a dog, just depends on everything from
you." And he said, he depends on you to feed him, he depends
on you to do everything for him. And he said, it's hard not to
love something that depends on you for everything. And we're
sitting there and thinking about that, you know, that's what believers
are. We're just dogs. We depend on God for everything.
If we knew just how much we really depend on Him for everything, With men, this is impossible.
But with God, all things are possible. All things are possible. It's for our own good that he
doesn't allow his church to operate on a surplus. Christ is charged,
or he has charge of the storehouse. And all things are ours. All
things are ours, brethren. When God stirs up the spirit
in his people, he gives out what's needed. And that's how God gives
us food convenient for us. You're looking at a sinner who
knows exactly what you feel, exactly what you go through,
exactly. I find myself bound. I find myself in captivity. I find myself in many doubts, with many cares. They're just useless doubts,
useless cares, absolutely useless. But you know what God's done?
He's put us together so that whenever we're discouraged and
would be a discouragement to our brethren, there's somebody
in our midst who is God's blessed to encourage and be an encouragement
to our brethren. That's just how he's put the
body together for that purpose. You remember whenever the The
spies went into the land of Canaan, and they come back, and they
come back to give the report of everything they saw in the
land of Canaan. And they came back, and everything they saw
was just like what God said it would be. But they saw those
giants, and they started discouraging their brethren. But God provided
somebody. There was Caleb sitting there,
and there was Joshua sitting there, and they were looking
at Christ. They were looking at God our Savior. And to them,
It seemed like a cakewalk. It seemed like easy, because
God said it would be. And they encouraged everybody.
They said, we can, we can. I want you to look over at 1
Samuel 17. You remember all Israel's mighty men, all the mightiest
men in Israel. They were scared to death of
Goliath, all of them. He was a giant. Goliath was just,
he was a giant. They were scared to death of
him. And David went out to meet him with a sling and five smooth
stones. That's all he went out there
with. He went out there, you've got those five stones. You've
got those five stones. You've got the stone of whom
he did foreknow. You've got the stone of them
he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his
son. You've got the stone of, and them He predestinated, them
He also called. You've got the stone of, and
them He also, them He called, them He also justified. You've
got the stone of, them He justified, He also glorified. And all of
these in that one living stone, Christ Jesus. He had five smooth
stones, but it wasn't the one stone that knocked Goliath on
his run. Just one. Christ, the living
stone. We have those stones, but you
know why God used David in that manner? Look at verse 47. And all this assembly shall know
that the Lord saveth not with sword and spear, for the battle
is the Lord's, and He will give you into our hands. That's what He said to Goliath.
He will give you into our hands. Here's the word of the Lord,
brethren, back in our text, Isaiah 45, 2. I will go before thee. See, that's what it is to follow
Christ, to have Christ go before us. I will go before thee, make
the crooked places straight. I will break in pieces the gates
of brass and cut and sunder the bars of iron. The victory is
ours in Christ. The treasure is Christ. And this
is what he says. Look back up in Isaiah 44, 28. This is what the Lord said of
his servant. He's my shepherd and shall perform
all my pleasure, even saying to Jerusalem, thou shalt be built,
and to the temple thy foundation shall be laid. I've used this
illustration to you before We looked at it not too long ago
about a baby. Picture a baby standing in front
of a roaring lion. A roaring lion. Like David standing
there in front of Goliath. Why would the Lord use a baby? Just you and me. Why would He
use us? Why did He use somebody that
doesn't have any power in ourselves to do anything? Why would He
do that? Call somebody, just do something so foolish that
nobody in Israel ever would have imagined. Call somebody from
outside of that place. Brought somebody in and do all
his work for him. Why would he do that? Look at
verse 6. He does it not only for the individual
sinner. He does it not only to save his
elect. He does it so that this whole
wicked world is going to know what He's already taught us in
the heart. Verse 6, that they may know from the rising of the
sun and from the west that there is none beside me. I am the Lord
and there's none else. Do we want people to know that?
I want you, my individual brethren, to know that. I want every one
of God's elect children who are yet dead in trespasses and sins
to know that. And I want the wicked men who
pass through this world blaspheming the name of my God to know that.
I want them to know that. There is no God besides Him.
Now, let me give you something to go home with. The question
is not, will the Lord do what He says? That's not the question.
The question is not, will the Lord build His house? Will the
Lord call out His sheep? That's not the question. Verse
13, he says, I've raised him up in righteousness, and I will
direct all his ways. He shall build my city. He shall
let go my captives, not for price nor reward, said the Lord of
Hosts. Had no question about that. Here's
the question. Has the Spirit of God loosened
your loins and opened the gates before you? Has the Lord delivered
you to believe the word of the true and living God? That's the
question. That's the question. I pray the
Lord delivers us from the dungeon of gloom into this liberty, into
this light of the all-sufficient, all-providing Redeemer. Wouldn't
that be a marvelous way to start out the new year? Free, absolutely
free, redeemed. We can put our hands to the work
and we can whistle while we work. You know what we can whistle?
Redeemed how I love to proclaim it. redeemed by the blood of
the Lamb, redeemed through His infinite mercy, His child, and
forever I am. You know what all our hope and
assurance is? Look at verse 17. Israel shall be saved in the
Lord with an everlasting salvation. Ye shall not be ashamed nor confounded
for all eternity. That's the Word of the Lord.
That's the Word of the Lord. Amen.