Now, if you will open your Bibles
with me again to Isaiah chapter 46. I have no introduction to the message
this morning. I just want to point out that
we are going to look at three subjects, three subjects in this
chapter. The first, The Prophecy of the
End of the Kingdom of Babylon. The Prophecy of the End of the
Kingdom of Babylon. You know, one of the many proofs,
and I do say one because there are many proofs of the inspiration
of the Word of God. This Bible is not like any other
book that you have or that you will ever see in this world.
This book is God's book. This book was divinely inspired. People say, well, men wrote it.
Yes, God used men to write it. But God inspired them as they
wrote the Word of God. And one of the many proofs of
the inspiration of Scripture is prophecy. Prophecy. that God foretold of things that
would come to pass, not just a few days or a few years, but
sometimes centuries before they took place. And he prophesied
of these things in detail. Isaiah lived some 700 years before
the Lord Jesus Christ came into this world. And he also lived
At least a hundred years, I think more, before Babylon, the nation
of Babylon came to such power, Nebuchadnezzar came to rule over
Babylon. And yet Isaiah here prophesies
of the end, the destruction of the kingdom. He also prophesied
that Judah, this is the reason this is important, that Judah,
God's people, that they would be taken into Babylon in captivity. If you turn back just a few pages
in your Bible to chapter 39 of Isaiah, verses three through six, We
see Isaiah speaking to Hezekiah, who was the king of Judah. Hezekiah
had been sick, you remember, and God added 15 years to his
life. And then these messengers, these
ambassadors, came from Babylon, and the pretext was to wish him
well, to give thanks that God had raised him up, healed him
from the sickness. So Hezekiah said, or we read
in, and Hezekiah was glad of them and showed them the house
of his precious things, these ambassadors who came. Beginning
with verse 3, we read, Then came Isaiah the prophet unto King
Hezekiah, and said unto him, What said these men? And from
whence came they unto thee? And Hezekiah said, They are come
from a far country unto me, even from Babylon. Then said he, What
have they seen in thine house? And Hezekiah answered, All that
is in mine house have they seen. There is nothing among my treasures
that I have not showed them. Then said Isaiah to Hezekiah,
hear the word of the Lord of hosts. Behold, the days come
that all that is in thine house and that which thy fathers have
laid up in store until this day shall be carried to Babylon.
Nothing shall be left, saith the Lord. Now Hezekiah, he reigned
on for a few years, and then his son came to the throne. Manasseh,
he reigned for 50 years, and then his son came to the throne. Josiah, he reigned for 31 years,
and then Josiah's son and sons came to the throne. before this
took place. So it was over a hundred years
that Isaiah told Hezekiah that everything in his house, all
of his treasures, were going to be carried into Babylon. Now how did Isaiah know that?
How did he know that? He knew that because God inspired
him. God showed him, told him what
to tell Hezekiah. That's how Isaiah knew. How did
Isaiah write chapter 53 when he speaks of Christ suffering
upon the cross? How did he know that? Because
he was inspired of God, the Holy Spirit. And that's true of all
the word of God, of all the scriptures. And here in our text today, We
see that he prophesies, and this was sometime, as we've already
seen, Judah was not even taken into Babylon. Babylon was not
a world power at this time. But Isaiah prophesies of how
it's going to be destroyed. How it's going to be brought
to an end. And he does it in this way. Notice
46, chapter 46. Bel boweth down, Nebo stoopeth
down. He prophesies of the destruction
of Babylon because he shows how that their most famous idol gods,
Bel and Nebo, would be carried away. Now Bel, it is believed,
was a god that the Babylonians worshipped. One of their kings
was named Belres. And after he died, he was deified,
and men began to worship him. Baal, mighty Baal. And then Nebo
was a god, they believed, through whom the priests received their
instructions, their word. He actually, they believed, spoke,
this god of Nebo. But Isaiah pictures them as being
stooped down, bowed down, stooped down. If we had no other proof, if
we had no other proof today that man is a fallen creature, this
alone should do it. You say what? The fact that man
will make himself a God and worship it. Can you imagine Adam before
he fell? When he was created in the image
of God, can you imagine that he at any time would have ever
picked up some stones or wood or whatever and carved out or
made a God and bowed down to it and worshipped it and said,
thou art my God? Of course not. It's only after
man sinned and failed You know, the people who believe in evolution,
which is a theory that ought to be rejected by any sane person,
they believe that man somehow started at the bottom of the
chain, at the bottom of the ladder, and we've been working ourselves
up ever since. Well, the exact opposite is true. You know that. That God created
man wholly, upright, And man's sin disobeyed God and he fell
into sin. And he fell so far into sin that
he would actually make himself a god and worship it. Look at the way this is described
in verses 6 and 7. Verses 6 and 7, they lavish gold
out of the bag. Nothing is too expensive. Nothing
costs too much. I'm going to make myself a god,
and I don't care what it costs. They lavish gold out of the bag,
way silver in the balance. And they hire a goldsmith, and
he maketh it a god. Oh, he puts that gold into the
furnace and heats it up, and then he fashions it, and however
the man thinks he wants to make it, that's the way he makes it.
He makes it a god. And then they fall down. The
very person who makes the God, he falls down before it. Even
though he's just made it. Even though he's just fashioned
it after his own desire. And yet he falls down and worships
it? And you tell me man is not a depraved individual? That man
did not suffer in the fall? Nothing could be any better proof
than the depravity, the fall of man, just as the word of God
tells us in Genesis chapter three, than the fact that men make themselves
gods. They bear him, look at verse
seven, they bear him upon the shoulder. They carry him and
set him in his place and he standeth. This always tickles me. I don't
know why, but it does when I read this. From his place shall he
not remove. Here they go. They've made themselves
of God. They've done the best they could.
It's just beautiful and adorned with gold and silver and everything
else they have. And they carry him on his shoulder
and put him in his place. Now they don't have to say, stay
here. It's not like putting one of
your children in the corner, if you do that, or in time out,
and say, stay here. And then sometimes they try to
run away, don't they? Get out of time out. Well, I
guarantee you this, God, you put him in His place, He's going
to stay there. Unless someone else comes along
and picks him up and carries him on His shoulder. And that's
what Isaiah is talking about here. Baal is bowed down. Nebo, stupid. In other words,
as it was common in that day, when one nation conquered another
nation, then what would they do? They would destroy their
gods and they would worship their god. Our god's more powerful. Our god's more powerful. And
Baal and Nebo, As far as the Babylonians were concerned, had
been powerful gods and had delivered other nations into their hands. But now Babylon is defeated by
the Persians. And so their gods are now carried
off as plunder, as the spoils of war. And because they're made
of gold and silver and adorned like they were, The Scripture
here says they actually become heavy. The carts on which the
oxen pull these gods away and take them to Persia. They're weighted down. They're
loaded down. And it shows the depravity of
man. Do you know, I'm talking about
Isaiah and prophesying. Did you know that Isaiah prophesied
not only the fall of Babylon, but he gave the name of the man
who would be king of Persia and overthrow Babylon. You say, that's quite a coincidence.
No, coincidence had nothing to do with it. It's all because
of the inspiration of the Spirit of God. Look back in chapter
44, if you will. Isaiah 44, and beginning in verse
28, that saith of Cyrus, now this
is a man, king of Persia, that God's raising up. He will take the place of Babylon,
Belteshazzar, You know, it's funny that those kings, they
included the names of their gods in their own names, didn't they? Nebuchadnezzar, that's from Nebo. Belteshazzar, remember, he's
the one we read about in this 45th chapter, whose loins began
to smite one another when he saw that handwriting on the wall.
Thou art weighed in the balances, found warning. God raised up
this man by the name of Cyrus. And his name, and this they said
is 210 years before Cyrus came to the throne. That saith of Cyrus, he is my
shepherd and shall perform all my pleasure. Even saying to Jerusalem,
thou shalt be built into the temple, thy foundation shall
be laid. Thus saith the Lord to his anointed,
to Cyrus, whose right hand I have holden, to subdue nations before
him. I hope that all of us here today
recognize that the God of the Bible, the God and Father of
our Lord Jesus Christ, is absolutely sovereign, that he reigns, he
rules, he executes all things according to his pleasure. We don't live in a world of chance. And we're not governed by fate.
Thank God. God Almighty reigns. You say, where does He reign?
He reigns everywhere. When does He reign? He reigns
at all times. Over whom does He reign? He reigns
over everyone and everything. What a great God we worship. and to think that he could be
imitated, that you could make something that would represent
him, is insanity, my friends. Whose right hand I have holden
to subdue nations before him, and I will loose the loins of
the kings. That's old Belchiser, isn't he?
I mean, when he saw that handwriting on the wall, You're talking about
your knees knocking. Everything in him began to knock.
He knew that someone had appeared. Someone was in control that was
above him, that was greater than him. To open before him the two leaved
gates, those were the gates that actually led into the city of
Babylon. 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 called thee by thy name, am the God
of Israel. For Jacob my servant's sake and
Israel mine elect, I have even called thee by thy name. Cyrus,
I've called you by your name. You don't know me. You haven't
known me. You've done what you wanted to
do to conquer nations, to defeat other armies. You've done that
because that was in your heart, but you have done exactly what
I determined that you should do. You say, I don't like that
God. Well, you've got a problem. You've got a problem because
you're going to meet Him. Like Him or not like Him. You're
going to meet Him. And I am too. And I'm so thankful
He is a sovereign God. I don't want a God I can make.
I don't want a God I can put in His place and tell Him, You
stay here and I'll come back and pick you up. I want a God, and this is the
God we have, in whom I live and move and have my being. You have not known me. I've even
called thee by thy name. I have surnamed thee, though
thou hast not known me. Josephus, who was a Jewish historian,
lived after some few years after Christ. He said in his history
that Cyrus was actually showed this prophecy here. And he was
told here, Isaiah spoke of you over 200 years ago. And maybe that's what God used
in stirring Cyrus up. Keep your places here, but look
back to 2 Chronicles in just a moment. 2 Chronicles, the last chapter, I believe,
36. 2 Chronicles chapter 36. Now this is a history here in Chronicles. 2nd Chronicles chapter 36 and
verse 22. Now in the first year of Cyrus,
think I've heard of him before. We did. We just read about him. Isaiah wrote about him 200 years
before he came to the throne. Josephus says he was showed that
prophecy. And notice what we read here.
Now in the first year of Cyrus, king of Persia, that the word
of the Lord spoken by the mouth of Jeremiah might be accomplished,
the Lord stirred up the spirit of Cyrus. How did he stir him
up? With the word of God. With the
word of God. You know, when these superstitious,
pagan, idol worshippers, when Judah was taken into captivity,
they thought, they thought that their God was more powerful.
No, it had nothing to do with the power of Jehovah. It had
everything to do with the sins of the nation of Israel. They
were carried captive. They were in Babylon, not because
their God lacked power, not because Baal and Nebo were greater in
power and strength than Jehovah, no, but because of their sins. And I know If you're like I am,
when I read about Israel of old, I wonder how could they have
done that? But then when I look into the
mirror, when I look into the word of God, I've got an answer. How in the world could these
people hear the cries of the Egyptians
when God killed the firstborn in that land? and then come out
and walk through that sea on dry ground that God opened up
for them. And then just a few days or months
later, have a golden calf and fall down and worship it. How? We do the same thing. I doubt that anybody in this
building today would worship God or an idol made of stone
or wood or anything like that. But let me tell you something.
We make a God in our mind. We manufacture one the way we
think God is. And we tell him, stay here. This is your place. When I need
you, I'll call on you. But otherwise, you just stay
here. When I need you, I'll come get
you. I'll come seeking. But God's
people, we worship God every day, don't we? I mean, He's real
to us. He's not some imaginary figure. He's real. Is He real to you? I pray He is. I pray He is real. When you pray, you're not praying
up into the ether, into nothing. I mean, when you pray, you know
that you've got the ear of God. When you come to him in the name
of Christ, when you speak to him as your heavenly father,
and you know that he cares for you. Well, I had another subject here. Do you see the prophecy of the
end of the nation of Babylon? It is spelled out by their gods
being taken away. That means that they have been
conquered, they have been defeated. The second subject, the loving
kindnesses of the Lord God Almighty. In verses three and four, hearken
unto me, O house of Jacob. We're going to look at this as
God's word, not to the nation of Israel of old, but to his
spiritual Israel, the remnant according to the election of
grace. Hearken unto me, O house of Jacob,
and all the remnant of the house of Israel, which are born by
me. We notice, first of all, that
God's people, the remnant, according to the election of grace, are
born by God. The false idols, the false gods,
they may be born by man. Yes, they're carried on men's
shoulders, but not God Almighty. He is the one who upholds all
things. And He's born by none, He's carried,
He's motivated, He's moved by no one. He does His pleasure
among the armies of heaven and the inhabitants of the earth. The remnant are born by God. In verse 5, the scripture here
says it's impossible. God shows it's impossible. There's
nothing you can liken unto me. There's no one you can liken
unto me. There's no one that may be my
equal that you can compare me with. The remnant of God are
born by God. And notice it says the remnant
are born by me from the belly, which are carried from the womb. This makes me think of that infant
in Ezekiel chapter 16 that's cast out. I don't know that there's anything
any more helpless than a newborn babe, do you? I mean, when a baby comes into
this world, It's helpless. It depends upon its mother and
those around him are hard to take care of. And yet that's
the picture that God uses of the nation of Israel first, but
of each and every one of us by nature. When we come into this
world, helpless, cast out, polluted in our blood, And the Lord passed
by and he said, live. And that's the only reason any
of us here today live. That's the only reason anyone
has spiritual life who knows God as their Lord and Savior.
Because when you were polluted in your blood, helpless, hopeless,
cast out like an infant, the God of all mercy, He passed by
and with his word he spoke and he said, live. Live. The remnant here are carried
to whore hairs. That's gray hair, isn't it? Anytime I read any of these scriptures
now that speak about whorey hair and old age, I tell you what,
that gets my interest. It gets my interest. And I'm
so thankful today to stand before you and speak to you of a God
who takes us from the belly, from the womb, and He bears us,
He carries us, He carries us, He carries us, and thank God
He's never going to let us down. He's never going to dispose of
us. He's going to carry his people
all the way, even until hoary hairs, even unto death, and yea,
even through death, through death. You know the word bear, it says
here, is born and he carries. That can be understood in one
of two ways. You can carry something Like
you do your Bible, you pick that up and carry it. And that's the
way I just use this. He carries us along just like
that shepherd when he realized there was one of his sheep missing.
He goes out and he searches and he searches until he finds that
one lost sheep, puts it on his shoulders, and carries it all
the way home. That's one way we can understand
carry. He carries us. But you know there's
another way this may be understood as well. He bears with us. He bears with us. He bears with
all of our doubts. You ever doubt the Lord? You
ever question all of our doubts and all of our questions and
all of our backslidings and all of our unbeliefs and all of our
fears? He bears with us. He bears. Aren't you thankful? I remember
a brother who has since gone to be with the Lord that used
to be here, but hearing him pray many times, thanking the Lord
for his loving kindnesses. Loving kindnesses. He bears with
us. Thank God. And the third subject,
the salvation of God's people is set forth. in Israel's deliverance
from Babylon. Just as God's salvation was set
forth in their deliverance from Egypt, so it is set forth in
their deliverance from Babylon. They were captives. They were
captives. There was no way for them to
free themselves. And yet God purposed to deliver
them from their captivity by Cyrus. He raised him up to be
his shepherd. God purposed it. He would also
do it. Is it possible for any purpose
of God to be frustrated? Do you think that could be God? The God of the Bible? The God
and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ? The God who spoke the
worlds into existence? Do you think that Anything that
he purposes to do that his purpose can be frustrated in any way,
can be overthrown, overturned so that it does not come to pass,
of course not. And notice in these last few
verses here, God had a man. to execute his counsel. That's
what it says here. As Cyrus, of course, in the case
of the nation of Israel, in verse number 11, or verse 10 rather, declaring
the end from the beginning and from ancient times the things
that are not yet done, saying, my counsel shall stand, I will
do all my pleasure, calling a ravenous bird from the east, the man that
executeth my counsel from a far country. Yea, I have spoken it,
I will also bring it to pass, I have purposed it, I will also
do it. That's Cyrus, no doubt, but it is also a type, a picture
of the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the man that executeth
God's counsel. Paul says, for there's one God,
one mediator between God and man, the man, Christ Jesus. The man, Christ Jesus. He executeth
God's counsel. God purposed to deliver a great
multitude of sinners from sin's captivity, And he would do it
through the man, the man of his counsel, the man that executed
his counsel. You notice it says he came from
a far country. Does that speak to you? Does
that tell you anything? He came from a far country. He
came down from heaven. Can't be any farther country
than heaven. And yet, God the eternal son
came down from a far country to execute God's plan, God's
counsel. He's called a ravenous bird,
but this is not the only place in scripture where God, he condescends
to use birds to illustrate his care and his concern for his
people. One example is in Deuteronomy,
where he said, as an eagle stirreth up her nests, fluttereth over
her young, spreadeth abroad her wings, taketh them, and beareth
them on wings, so the Lord alone did lead him. And many other
places in the scriptures he's spoken of under the symbol of
a bird. And the word ravenous here is
not like we would think of ravening wolves, but it speaks of the
swiftness, the swiftness that he would come. One of the last
prophecies in the Old Testament of his coming is the Lord whom
you seek shall suddenly come to his temple. And notice he
came to be the righteousness of God. I bring near my righteousness,
the Lord Jesus Christ. He is Jehovah Tiscany. He is the Lord's righteousness. When we think of the righteousness
of God, we know that God as a being is perfectly righteous. But that's
not what this is speaking of, is it? This is speaking of the
righteousness that the God-man worked out. And it's called the
righteousness of God because He is God-man. It is called the
righteousness of God because God appointed it. It is called
the righteousness of God because God accepted it. And it's called
the righteousness of God because with this righteousness, every
one that God gave unto his son is justified by this righteousness. And the last thing, he came to
be God's salvation in Zion, that is the church. In the New Testament,
we read we are come to Mount Zion. That's the church of the
Lord Jesus Christ. And I want to close with this.
These are the words of the psalmist. In his temple, we're talking
about Mount Zion now, the church. In his temple, everyone speaks
of his glory. Amen. Everyone in this church,
I'm not talking about this church per se, I'm talking about Mount
Zion, the church of the Lord Jesus Christ. Everyone that is
a part of this church speaks of His glory. Speaks of His glory. I pray the
Lord will bless this word to all of us here today.