CYRUS THE GREAT

[i]

Isaiah 44:28; 45:4, 13 

King James Version (KJV)

²⁸ That saith of Cyrus, He is 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…

⁴ For Jacob my servant's sake, and Israel mine elect, I have even called thee by thy name: I have surnamed thee, though thou hast not known me…

¹³ I have raised him up in righteousness, and I will direct all his ways: he shall build my city, and he shall let go my captives, not for price nor reward, saith the Lord of hosts.

According to the setting presented in Isaiah 1:1, Isaiah wrote this book between 739 and 681 BCE. History records that Cyrus[ii] lived between 598 and 530 BCE. Taken at face value, this prediction of Isaiah preceded the reign of Cyrus by well over 100 years. Christians have traditionally assigned omniscience, omnipotence, and omnipresence to God. As such God can read history not only in what has already occurred but equally in what is yet to come.

Many biblical scholars worry that if a supreme being has perfect foreknowledge, then that knowledge removes the possibility of created beings having free will. If these creatures do not have free will, then they are not responsible for their own sins, so Christ’s sacrifice on the cross is unnecessary. Some of these scholars date “Deutero-Isaiah,” chapters 40 to 55 of Isaiah, to a prophet who lived in Babylon during the captivity of the Jews and already knew of Cyrus. They claim his/her writings are published as part of the prophecies of Isaiah. This raises the very real concern about what we mean by all scripture being inspired by God. Is God relying on a misrepresentation to get the prophetic message to the world?

My physicist friends insist on another way to look at creation and the Creator. We must assume that in the beginning God created our entire universe, which includes both space and time. In this case God is outside of both time and space. This means that God is not restricted to the inexorable march of time. God can view time as completely and clearly as He can physical space. This concept of creation gets us around whether or not there is a Deutero-Isaiah. What does this do to the problem raised about human free will?

As I see it, in either case we still have divine foreknowledge. What I do not see is that foreknowledge automatically includes God’s fore-ordaining human actions. It does include acknowledging that God’s intellect and knowledge are infinitely greater than humans can know or understand.

Lord, I thank You that although Your thoughts are infinitely higher than mine, You still take a personal interest in me and my life.

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[i] https://iranterritory.wordpress.com/2015/10/29/happy-cyrus-day-the-king-of-persia/

[ii] https://www.britannica.com/biography/Cyrus-the-Great

Weapons to Fight in the Light

[i]

Romans 13:12

Good News Translation (GNT)

¹² The night is nearly over, day is almost here. Let us stop doing the things that belong to the dark, and let us take up weapons for fighting in the light.

When I was probably about 8 years old we had a student at Helderberg College who taught our Sabbath School class. He was very persuasive and very knowledgeable. He also had an unshakeable faith in Jesus Christ and His soon return. He looked at current world events—around 1950—and assumed that all the prophecies about Christ’s return had already been fulfilled. He stated that he guaranteed categorically that Christ would return within 5 years at the very most. It made a huge impression on me, or I certainly wouldn’t remember it all these years later.

I got much of his expressed certainty, but I do remember wondering whether it would really happen. The thought of Christ’s coming struck fear into my life rather than wondrous hope. Christ’s coming meant He would judge me, and I knew that my life and thoughts would reveal that I wasn’t ready. What it did mean to be ready? In my young life it meant that I would no longer be sinning—something that still hasn’t happened. I did not understand what the grace of Christ means to every Christian. It is this grace that makes me ready in spite of my sinful nature.

Unfortunately my teacher hadn’t put this verse into either his or my thoughts about getting ready. “Let us take up the weapons for fighting in the light.” A weapon of great consequence is the “Sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God” (Ephesians 6:17 KJV). Now close to 70 years later, it appears that we have a new tool in this Sword. Devout men and women of God are demanding that we provide Scripture to each people group in their own heart language. Furthermore they are anxious, willing, and able to step in and provide the manpower to produce these translations. Truly this is a modern outpouring of the Holy Spirit to provide the most powerful weapons “for fighting in the light!” With these weapons against him, Satan is hard pressed like never before. He is redoubling his fiendish efforts to defeat Christ and us. But we have the infinite power on our side, and we can indeed overcome by Christ’s amazing grace.

Thank You, Lord, for giving us this new and most potent weapon against the enemy of all human kind in our day.

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[i] https://www.christianitytoday.com/news/2016/march/wycliffe-associates-leaves-wga-bible-translation-son-of-god.html