Proper 24: Old Testament, Isaiah 45:1-7                    

Isaiah 45:1-7

I cannot imagine there is anything I would not do to care for, or to protect my sons. Now, they are fully capable of taking care of themselves. They’re both past 30 now. But they are my sons, my children. And outside of Jesus of Nazareth and my dear wife, nothing garners more of my thinking and consideration on any given day than my two young men. I am sure you must have thought this, but just how does my love for my kids compare, or better does it compare with the love of God for his baptized ones?

Isaiah 45 opens with the great prophet making a proclamation that Cyrus will be used by the LORD to deliver his enslaved children from their captivity. There’s just a couple issues. His children aren’t in captivity when Isaiah makes this utterance and Cyrus has not been born. What?! So someone has to be born who will become a ruler who could bring deliverance to a people not yet enslaved. Oh. An interesting detail, mom and dad just have to pick the name Cyrus from “The Iron Age’s Guide to Baby Names.” BAM! The prophet nailed it all and about two centuries before the day he proclaimed. That’s two HUNDRED years before.

 Take into consideration the fact that by the time God’s people in Judah were carted away to Babylon, they really deserved what they were getting. They had entered into paganism on a grand scale, they had spurned the Word of the Lord at just about every turn and always gave God’s spokesmen a really, really hard time. You cannot blame the Lord. (Makes me hope he’s not watching America, although I know he is).

As God calls and forms this Cyrus, listen to his self-introduction: “For the sake of my servant Jacob (catch that), and Israel my chosen, I call you by your name, I name you, though you do not know me, I am the LORD, and there is no other, besides me there is no God; I equip you, though you do not know me, that people may know, from the rising of the sun and from the west, that there is none besides me; I am the LORD and there is no other. I form light and create darkness, I make well-being and create calamity, I am the LORD, who does all these things” (Is. 45:4-7, italics-my comment). 

Back to care for kids. “For the sake of my servant Jacob.” God says he’ll put future forces into play that will prove he is who he says he is. To the very “nth” degree, God will care for and protect those who are his. Cyrus liberated the captives. Cyrus defeated their enemies. But in the end, it is the LORD who does all these things. God be praised!