1. "The story of the Bible is a story of salvation, but it begins with a tragedy. God creates Adam and Eve, our first parents, in a perfect place, the Garden of Eden, where they could live with and praise God forever. But Adam and Eve sinned. They disobeyed God and they reaped the deadly rewards of that choice."

2. "I wonder how you would read the Bible differently if you came to it assuming that your assumptions might be wrong. And that the Bible might actually help you see reality better. I think that's a more honest way of reading scripture."

3. "Our sovereign God uses those who do not know him to do great good in the world all the time. Someone doesn't have to be converted to be used by God to bring about greater justice or human flourishing in the world."

4. "Just because God uses you to do something good in the world doesn't mean that you are good with him. Friend, it would be a tragedy to be an instrument used by God in this life to do great good and yet bear his just wrath in the next for all of eternity."

5. "Nothing in this life happens by chance. Everything from the fate of great empires to the minute details of your everyday life is ruled over by God. It is an instrument of God's sovereign will to work all that he desires in this world."

6. "God in all of life is working for the good of his people, the salvation. He's bringing us home to that eternal city through Christ. But we are tempted to look at his ways and be discontent, to judge them, to accuse him of wrong for it."

7. "We don't need to rejoice in suffering itself. We don't need to rejoice in cancer or in childlessness or in miscarriages. But friend, we do cherish those hard things in the hand of a sovereign God as instruments that he will use to bring us home to the heavenly city."

8. "There are some things you can trust sincerely and they will end in your shame. That is to say, the thing that you have trusted in will be empty when you come before the Lord."

9. "You don't need to feel bad enough about your sin. You don't need to work to clean yourself up a little bit more in order to come to Jesus. Those forms of preparation will do you no eternal good. You simply take hold of God's gracious promise."

10. "When your conscience condemns you and says that you deserve death in hell, tell them this: I have turned to Christ and I shall be saved."

Observation Questions

1. In Isaiah 45:1, what specific actions does the Lord say He will do for Cyrus, and what title does God give him?

2. According to Isaiah 45:4-5, what reasons does God give for calling Cyrus by name, and what does Cyrus not know about the Lord?

3. What does Isaiah 45:7 claim about what the Lord forms and creates, and what conclusion does God draw about Himself?

4. In Isaiah 45:9-10, what two illustrations does God use to show the absurdity of creatures questioning their Creator?

5. According to Isaiah 45:22, what command does the Lord give to "all the ends of the earth," and what reason does He provide for this command?

6. What two contrasting destinies are described in Isaiah 45:16-17 for idol makers versus Israel?

Interpretation Questions

1. Why is it significant that God names Cyrus and predicts his actions over 150 years before his birth, and what does this reveal about God's sovereignty over human history?

2. How does the fact that God uses Cyrus—a pagan who does not know Him—to accomplish His purposes affect our understanding of God's control over all people and nations?

3. In verses 9-10, why does God respond to His people's complaints with the imagery of a pot questioning a potter and a child questioning parents, and what does this teach about the proper posture of God's people under His sovereign care?

4. How does the promise in verse 22 ("Turn to me and be saved, all the ends of the earth") connect to God's earlier promise to Abraham that all nations would be blessed through him?

5. What is the relationship between God working for His own glory (vv. 3, 6) and God working for the good of His people (v. 4), and how do these two purposes complement rather than contradict each other?

Application Questions

1. When you face circumstances in life that seem confusing, painful, or contrary to what you expected from God, what specific practices can help you "look up" to remember that God is the Creator and you are His creation?

2. The sermon mentioned that discontentment under God's sovereignty can manifest as despair, fear, anxiety, or anger. Which of these tendencies do you most struggle with, and what truth from Isaiah 45 can you rehearse when you feel that way?

3. God's promise in verse 22 is described as sufficient for those who struggle with assurance of salvation. If your conscience condemns you this week because of past or present sin, how will you use this promise to combat those accusations?

4. The sermon emphasized that we should align our lives with God's grand purposes: His glory and His people's good. What is one specific way you can reorient your time, energy, or resources this week to serve these purposes more intentionally?

5. Considering that God uses even unbelievers to accomplish good in the world, how should this truth shape the way you interact with, appreciate, and pray for non-Christians in your workplace, neighborhood, or community?

Additional Bible Reading

1. Genesis 12:1-9 — This passage records God's promise to Abraham that all nations would be blessed through him, which Isaiah 45 shows being fulfilled as the nations come to acknowledge God.

2. Philippians 2:5-11 — Paul quotes Isaiah 45:23 to show that every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, revealing how this prophecy finds its ultimate fulfillment in Christ.

3. Romans 8:28-39 — This passage expands on the truth that God works all things for the good of those who love Him and assures believers that nothing can separate them from His love.

4. Romans 9:19-24 — Paul uses the same potter-and-clay imagery from Isaiah 45:9 to address questions about God's sovereign right to show mercy as He chooses.

5. Ezra 1:1-11 — This passage records the historical fulfillment of Isaiah's prophecy when Cyrus issued the decree allowing the Jewish exiles to return to Jerusalem and rebuild the temple.

Sermon Main Topics

I. The Story of Salvation: Lost Exiles Seeking Home

II. Take Comfort in His Sovereign Care (Isaiah 45:1-13)

III. Take Hold of His Gracious Promises (Isaiah 45:14-25)

IV. Turn and Look to Jesus: The Only Way Home

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Detailed Sermon Outline

Charles grew up in a Christian home in England. He was well aware of his sin against God, but he didn't know how he could be saved. He felt helpless, like an exile, far from home, not knowing how to get back. As he writes, I can recollect when, like the poor dove sent out by Noah from his hand, I flew over the wide expanse of waters, and hoped to find some place where I might rest my wearied wing. Up towards the north I flew, and my eye looked keenly through the mist and darkness, if perhaps it might find some floating substance on which my soul might rest its foot.

But it found nothing. Again, it turned its wing and flapped it, but not so rapidly as before, across the deep water that knew no shore, but still, there was no rest. I wonder how you might identify with Charles this morning. The story of the Bible is a story of salvation, but it begins with a tragedy. God creates Adam and Eve, our first parents, in a perfect place, the Garden of Eden, where they could live with and praise God forever.

But Adam and Eve sinned. They disobeyed God and they reaped the deadly rewards of that choice. They were sent away from their garden home, sent far from God, destined never to return. That restlessness that we feel in the world, the sense that we cannot find final peace and joy and comfort and security here is just an echo of that problem. We, being in sin, are far from God, and we need to find a way back home.

That's why Christians talk so much about salvation. Salvation is the great story of how lost exiles like us can make it to our eternal home with God. That's the story of the Bible, and that's especially the story of the book of Isaiah that we're studying this morning. This morning we're in Isaiah chapter 45. I'd encourage you to turn there with me.

You'll find that on page 605. Of the Pew Bibles. In our occasional study through Isaiah, we've been tracking how God is caring for his sinful people. Isaiah is really a tale of two cities: the earthly Jerusalem, marked by sin and suffering and rebellion against God, and the heavenly Jerusalem, marked by righteousness, peace with God, and everlasting joy. The question of Isaiah is, how do we get from the sinful earthly Jerusalem to the glorious heavenly Jerusalem?

And the answer throughout the book of Isaiah is, we trust in the Lord. We don't trust in the nations, we don't trust in their gods, we don't trust in ourselves, we trust in the Lord. We've been walking through Isaiah for quite some time. Last summer we were studying through Isaiah chapter 39 and there, after Hezekiah, the king of Judah, makes a foolish choice, Isaiah tells Hezekiah 39:6, Behold, the days are coming when all that is in your house, and that which your fathers have stored up till this day shall be carried to Babylon. Nothing shall be left, says the Lord.

And some of your own sons who will come from you, whom you will father, shall be taken away, and they shall be eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon. Israel has lived out the role of a corporate Adam, given a covenant with God, and yet just like their father Adam, disobeying and so reaping the deadly consequences of their sin. They are cast out from the land that God had promised them. They were exiles. What hope would they have to return?

Well in Isaiah 40 through 66, the prophet turns to show us the hope that the sinful exiled people of God have. That God has not done with his sinful people. No, by his grace, his unearned merit, he would bring them home. And Isaiah 45 fits into that context in showing that God is the only one who can bring us home. He is our only Savior.

I do think that's the main point of this text. So if you're writing anything down, this is the big point of Isaiah 45. It's probably the most important thing I'll say today. I'll say it a couple of times because it's longer than normal. The Lord is the only Savior.

So take comfort in his sovereign care and take hold of his gracious promise. The Lord is the only Savior So take comfort in His sovereign care and take hold of His gracious promise. Now, with a long point like that, what's nice is it just breaks into the two points of my outline. So, point number one, take comfort in His sovereign care. And we see that in verses 1 to 13.

And let me read there, verses 1 to 8, to give you the flavor of the text. Follow along with me, Isaiah 45, beginning in verse 1. Thus says the Lord to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have grasped to subdue nations before him, and to loose the belts of kings, to open doors before him, that gates may not be closed. I will go before you and level the exalted places. I will break in pieces the doors of bronze and cut through the bars of iron.

I will give you the treasures of darkness, and the hordes in secret places. That you may know that it is I, the Lord, the God of Israel, who call you by your name. For the sake of my servant Jacob 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.

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 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. Shower, O heavens, from above, and let the clouds rain down righteousness. Let the earth open that salvation and righteousness may bear fruit. Let the earth cause them both to sprout. I the Lord have created it.

What we see here in these opening verses of Isaiah 45 is a surprising prediction of God. God is telling his people, especially those exiled people, Isaiah writes around 700 BC, the people are in exile after 586. So though it is written to Isaiah's generation, this would be of special use to those people who are exiled, who have felt the displeasure of the Lord and are wondering how they will get get home. Well, the Lord gives them the good news there in 45:1 that he has appointed someone to bring them home. And what is striking about this prediction is how specific and accurate it is.

He names Cyrus. This is Cyrus the Great of Persia who would arise over a hundred years later and then in about 150 years come to take over the ancient Near East. He would expand the Persian Empire which would encompass even Babylon and so set the exiles free. What's striking here, of course, is that Isaiah wrote around the decades of 700 BC and he's talking about someone with such specificity. He names Cyrus who wasn't going to be born until the 580s.

And then he talks through all the ways in which Cyrus, this unknown Persian, would arise and take over the kingdom of the earth. He talks through his great campaign by which he would conquer. It is a striking thing for modern readers like us to think that God could so accurately and so specifically predict the future. Indeed, it is so striking that there are modern scholars who think that this section of Isaiah, basically Isaiah 40 through 66, it must be written much later. It has to be written after the events of Cyrus because it is so specific, it hits the nail too much on the head.

Now, friends, I understand the reasoning behind that. You think of reading through a text and it points to something so clearly in the future. You think, well, this has to be someone who knows the events ahead of time. They have to be someone that sees it right there. But I wonder, friend, if you recognize the kind of background or the support that something, a theory like that would have, that Isaiah was written in multiple parts.

What we see is that we don't have good historical or textual evidence to think that Isaiah is fragmentary. That it was written at different times by different people. No, actually the earliest receivers and readers of Isaiah read it as a whole work. You can see that, for instance, in the book of Ezra. In the Dead Sea Scrolls, they find not different pieces of Isaiah, but a whole scroll of Isaiah, these 66 books that we read today.

And so, what we are confronted with is the way that our assumptions affect our reading of the text of Scripture. If we think that it's impossible to predict the future, we are presupposing that the Bible is wrong to speak of a God who both knows and reveals the future to his people. We come to Scripture thinking that it cannot possibly be true. A non-Christian friend who is with us here today, I wonder if that's how you read the Bible. As you come to the pages of Scripture, you think, well, it can't possibly teach things that I don't already believe.

That might not be an articulated belief when you come to this Scripture, But friends, when we face this kind of predictive prophecy, we are struck that either what it is saying is true, that God really knows and speaks the future, or it is false. But we need to judge that based on the text itself and not on our own assumptions and presuppositions. I wonder how you would read the Bible differently if you came to it assuming that your assumptions might be wrong. And that the Bible might actually help you see reality better. I think that's a more honest way of reading scripture.

And you could take that out for a spin. You could read through the Gospel of Mark, you can take this red Bible and the pews around you, it's our gift to you, read through the Gospel of Mark, it'll take you two hours this afternoon and ask three questions. Who is Jesus? What did he accomplish? What does that mean for you?

If you'd like to talk more about that, I'm gonna be at that door on the way out. I would love to talk to you as you engage with a text of scripture. But brothers and sisters, the predictive qualities of Scripture, the surety of God's Word, is not just to confront us in our unbelief, but rather it's to strengthen our faith. God gave this prophecy to His people to comfort them in their hour of affliction. It was to bolster their faith that the things that were to come were ultimately under the control of a sovereign God.

Dear friends, this prophecy was given for you if you're in Christ so that you would have to have your faith strengthened in God's word. If you're ever in a season where your faith in God's word is shaken, one of the ways to see how God's promises are fulfilled time and time again is simply to look at the prophecies of Scripture and their fulfillment. You can do that especially by looking at all the ways that the Old Testament points forward to the person of Jesus Christ. What he would do, what he would be like, what he would do for his people. As you see the Bible coming to fulfillment even there in the pages of Scripture, your faith begins to grow.

When I was a young Christian in college, every time I came across a part of the Bible that seemed to contradict or something that I couldn't prove, my faith was shaken. But now, 10, 15 years on, I've seen the Bible work out so well that every text of Scripture ties so perfectly to the next. I've seen God fulfill his word over and over and over again in the Scriptures. That when I come to a contradiction or something that seems like a contradiction, I just trust there's gonna be a good interpretation even if I don't I can trust God's word because it's shown itself to be faithful. Friends, I hope you can do that.

And kids of the church, this is a great way for you even now to be building up your faith in Scripture. Whenever you read the Bible, ask yourself the question, how does this text point me to Jesus? That might be hard to do when you're first getting going. There's different ways that different texts of Scripture point to Jesus. But once you see that every text naturally ties to Jesus as the culmination of the biblical story, your faith's gonna grow.

Ask your parents for help, ask your pastors for help. We'd love to help you read God's word better. And so we see this shocking prediction but the emphasis, of course, in the text is that the Lord predicts the future because he is sovereign over the future. That is to say, he is in control of it all. Do you see that in the verses?

It's the Lord in verse 1 who takes Cyrus by the right hand to empower and guide him. It is the Lord who subdues nations before him, who levels the earth, exalted places so that his conquering campaign would be easy. It's the Lord who breaks down the doors of bronze and the bars of iron. It is the Lord who gives him treasures. It is the Lord who names him.

That is not only knowing him but asserting authority over him. God is using Cyrus as his instrument to work salvation for his people. Oh yes, Cyrus may conquer but he only does so because the Lord enables and determines that he will. Now, strikingly, God uses this conqueror, Cyrus, as an instrument to fulfill his purposes, even though Cyrus doesn't know the Lord. Do you see that there in verse 4?

I name you, though you do not know me. Obviously, here, Cyrus is not one of God's people. He is a pagan. He is a Persian. He is someone who doesn't believe in the one true God.

He's not a worshiper of the Lord's. No, as best we can tell, he's a polytheist pagan. While God's blessing and foretelling should have been enough for Cyrus to realize that God is the only God, that the Lord is the only one to be worshiped, there's no indication that Cyrus is ever converted. Even though in his edict that freed the Jewish people in 539 to go back to their land, ultimately as he acknowledges this God of Israel, you can read of it in Ezra chapter one, it seems like he's basically hedging his bets. He's pro the worship of other gods insofar as those gods might then be pro him.

And so he's very happy for the peoples of the Persian Empire to worship whatever God they would like so that he would be blessed by it. And so, what's striking here then is that God is using this one who is not one of his people, this one who doesn't know, doesn't trust, doesn't love the Lord. And so, there are two things to know, two things that I think are important for us to see here. On the one hand, our sovereign God uses those who do not know him to do great good in the world all the time. Someone doesn't have to be converted to be used by God to bring about greater justice or human flourishing in the world.

So if you're here and you're not a Christian, you're not a believer in God, I hope you understand how thankful we are for all the good that you do in the world. For all the ways in which you make this world a better place and cause human beings to flourish. We are thankful to you and ultimately we are thankful to the way that God uses you to do good here. We hope and we pray that you will see that insofar as your work does any good in this world is only because God blesses it. And yet, on the other hand, just because God uses you to do something good in the world doesn't mean that you are good with him.

Oh, Cyrus would do great good because of God's blessing but Cyrus ultimately didn't know the Lord. We've all sinned against God disobeying him and giving our worship and our trust to other lesser things. Even the good things that we do in this life are stained with our sin, our disobedience against the Lord. God will soon judge the world in righteousness and our faulty goodness will fail that final test. Friend, it would be a tragedy to be an instrument used by God in this life to do great good and yet bear his just wrath in the next for all of eternity.

Oh friend, don't just do good in the world, be right with God. Listen as we go through the text, you'll hear great hope for you in just a moment. Well God's sovereign use of Cyrus displays that he is in control of everything and everyone. His authority is on full display there in verse seven. Look there with me.

Verse seven, it's hard to find a more stark divine proclamation of sovereignty or control. I form light and create darkness. I make well-being and create calamity. I am the Lord who does all these things. The Lord is saying that whatever comes to us in life, whether the prosperity and the things that we experience as good or disaster, the things that we experience as bad, it all comes from the Lord.

He does all these things. As Paul will later write in the book of Ephesians, God works all things according to the counsel of his will. Or as the psalmist declares in 115, Our God is in the heavens and he does all that he pleases. Friends, we should not fail to marvel at God's exhaustive control over all things.

Nothing in this life happens by chance. Everything from the fate of great empires to the minute details of your everyday life is ruled over by God. It is an instrument of God's sovereign will to work all that he desires in this world. Friends, who is like this God?

Now as we think of God's sovereignty there are two guardrails that are always helpful to have in our minds. The first is human responsibility. The Bible is clear, even here in Isaiah 45, that God's sovereignty in no way precludes our responsibility for how we live in this world. Friends, we have to make real choices and those choices really do matter. They'll affect our eternity.

The second guardrail is that God is never the author or approver of sin. He never does or approves of moral evil. While the Lord is sovereign over the sinful actions of his fallen creatures, he never participates in their sin. No, as James reminds us, the Lord neither sins nor tempts us to sin. He is entirely good and holy while remaining entirely in control of the worst moral evils in this world.

That is a mystery we will never be able to solve. So if you ask me afterwards, I'm just gonna say, Mystery, hard, that's really difficult. We simply assert these things because the Scriptures assert them.

Of course, thinking about our incomprehensible God naturally leads us to mystery, to wonder. And we simply look and we say, God is in control even when I don't understand.

Now, friends, we should see that even in the midst of this high mystery, God delights to reveal his grand purposes to his people. Do you see it there in the text? Verses three to six has three purpose statements that really boil down to two purposes. You see the first one in verse three, that you, that is Cyrus, may know that it is I, the Lord, the God of Israel, who call you by your name. Then if you jump down to verse six, why is he going to establish the work of Cyrus?

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. Friends, one of the grand purposes that shoots through all of the works of God is that God will glorify his name.

He will make His intrinsic greatness clear so that all can see and marvel and glorify Him for it. In all that He is doing, He is aiming at making His name great in His salvation. The second we see there baked into verse four, why does He do this saving work? For the sake of my servant Jacob and Israel my chosen. I call you by your name.

I name you though you do not know me. What is God doing all this work for? Yes, he's doing it for his glory, but he's also always doing it for his people's good. And what's shocking here, of course, is that this is talking about the great movement of world events. He is saying that I am going to be shifting around empires.

I'm going to be raising up this great conqueror so that I can do good to my people. It is his absolute commitment to do good to the people that he has chosen for himself. This is a glorious thing, something that should fill our hearts with comfort, that the God who is in control of all things is only ever working for the good of his people. He will show himself to be a great Savior by doing his people everlasting good.

And so as Paul famously writes in Romans 8:28, and we know that for those who love God, all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. And we see those good purposes flourishing in the salvation of his people. You see it in verse 8. God is commanding creation to bring about the salvation of his people. Oh, they were fearful all around, but we see the God who is sovereign over creation commanding it to bring about righteousness and salvation.

I think the righteousness that's reigning down from heaven here is God's own faithfulness to his covenant promises. God is righteous. He will not go back on his word to save his people. And as that righteousness comes down, so he commands salvation to spring up. As God is faithful to his covenant promises, so God's covenant people are saved.

They're delivered. And they are delivered, interestingly, isn't it, into this new creation that God has made. That's going to be a major theme throughout the latter part of Isaiah, that God's redemptive work is a re-creative work. He's not not only bringing us home, he is creating that perfect home for us. A land where righteousness dwells, where God's people will forever be with the Lord.

Of course, friends, we can't know all the specific ways that God is glorifying himself or doing good to us in the various instances of our lives. There may be lots of things in our lives that don't make sense or seem unnecessary to us. Yet we can know that the overarching purposes of God in all that he does is to glorify his name and to do good to his people. Praise God that this sovereign God is not capricious or cruel. No, his sovereign will is ordered to the good that he himself is.

And if God's works are aimed at these two grand purposes, our lives should be too. In all that we do, we should work for God's glory and his people's good. And beloved, I am so encouraged that so many people here in this church make that their great aim. In all that you do, you work for the glory of God and the good of God's people. And so when you're obeying God, when no one else sees, when you're sharing the gospel and you're constantly being rejected, when you're studying the Word, even when you feel like you're not getting anything out of it.

When you're gathering with God's people in a spiritually dry season. When you're praying through the directory asking for good to be done to the people of God. When you're meeting up with people and trying to invest in others in our church. Friends, in all these ways, you are aligning yourself with the grand purposes of God that are the through line of all of his sovereign work. We are not wasting our lives.

And so as we soon send off yet another beloved family, the Koreas, to go and to pastor in Singapore, friends, we are not doing so foolishly or wastefully. Yes, it will be sad to see them go, but we go so that God would be glorified in that place. So that the people in those churches that Ryan, Lord willing, will pastor will be done good to, that they would flourish under the teaching of the Word. Friends, we are not wasting our lives by pressing into those great purposes. So keep going, beloved.

Now, the passage takes a sharp turn in verse 9. Look there with me, verses 9 all the way through 13.

Woe to him who strives with him who formed him, a pot among earthen pots; does the clay say to him who forms it, 'He made me, what are you making? Or your work has no handles. Woe to him who says to a father, what are you begetting? Or to a woman, with what are you in labor? Thus says the Lord, the Holy One of Israel, and the one who formed him, Ask me of things to come.

Will you command me concerning my children and the work of my hands? I made the earth and created man on it. It was my hands that stretched out the heavens and I commanded all their host: I have stirred him up in righteousness, and I will make all his ways level. He shall build my city, and set my exiles free; not for price or reward, says the Lord of hosts. Evidently here the Lord is anticipating the sinful complaints and accusations of his people.

That might be surprising to us. We see this great salvation that God is predicting for them in verses 1 to 8. Why in the would God's people complain? Well friends, the passage is shot through with messianic hopes. It has the theme of a new exodus, of God bringing the people out of a land of tyranny into the land that he has promised, doing so even giving them material support along the way as the Israelites plundered the Egyptians.

And so too, we have the rule and reign of the messianic son of David. We have the Lord's anointed ruling over the nations with a rod of iron, even as we sung of in Psalm 2 at the beginning of our service. And yet, for all of these messianic hopes, the one named is not the son of David, it's not the son of Abraham, it's not one of God's people, it was Cyrus. Cyrus the Gentile, Cyrus the pagan, Cyrus the unclean. The nations, of course, were always a threat to the people of God.

These were the people that God had used to discipline them time and time again. These were the enemies of God's people. These were the people that were were domineering over them and oppressing them. Even in Isaiah's own day, Israel and Judah were essentially vassal states, constantly under threat by these great empires like Assyria and Babylon. It is then almost like a cruel joke.

Here's everything you hope for. Here's the Messiah to come, but it's a mockery. It's not the Messiah that we had hoped for.

Were. It's like God's promises had failed. And so, He sat in judgment over God's sovereign salvation. Now friends, we often fall into the same temptation, don't we? One of my tasks every day is with my one and a half year old Maria is to get her changed and to give her breakfast.

So I get Maria up, Maria is always very sweet when I wake her up. So the morning usually starts really well. And then we go up to the kitchen and I sit her down in this chair and she feels okay about being in the chair. But as I'm making breakfast, as I'm working on her bottle, all these sorts of things, she starts to voice her discontentment to me. And the striking thing is, even as I am actively doing her good, she does not understand it to be so and she makes her displeasure known.

Friends, that's exactly the situation that we are in. God in all of life is working for the good of his people, the salvation. He's bringing us home to that eternal city through Christ. But we are tempted to look at his ways and be discontent, to judge them, to accuse him of wrong for it. And friends, of course, there are many hard providences.

Difficult situations that members of our congregation find themselves in. If you turn to the person next to you after service, you will be able to find out a world of suffering that your brother or sister in Christ is going through. There are members of our congregation who struggle with chronic illness. There are members of our congregation who long to have children and can't. There are those who have wayward children.

That they long to see come to know the Lord. There are marriages in our church in real trouble. There are those with persistent sin struggles. Friends, it is easy in those hard circumstances that seem so backwards to us for us to sit in judgment over the Lord. How could you do this?

How could you appoint this? How could this be for my good? I wonder how that discontentment under God's sovereignty might be showing up in your life. Is it through the despair? Do you just think there's no hope that God has turned his face away from you and has ceased to do you good?

Is it in fear and anxiety? What else is going to come? How else will the Lord make my life hard? Or is it anger? For me, it's anger.

That when I run into traffic that's not good, when I'm in a counseling situation and I just can't get across, if I'm in a fight in my marriage, I look at what God has put in my life and I say, this is wrong. I wish it was different. You're wrong for putting this here. Friends, we see the Lord's answer to his sinful people essentially being three different things.

Look up, look forward, and look backward. Look up, look forward, and look backward. First, we look up. You see it there in verses 9 to 10. God is saying that because he is the creator, we, the creation, cannot sit in judgment over his works.

It would be like a pot telling a potter what he should do or like a child telling the parent whom they should have. Oh friends, it is entirely wrong and ridiculous. I've never been an especially good artist. That was the one class in school that I could never possibly get an A in. And so I one time asked my eighth grade art teacher, what do I need to do to get an A in your class?

And she just said, no matter how bad your art is, you just come to me and you ask me, how can I make this better? And if you keep doing that, I'll give you the lowest level A I can. And you better believe I got the A in that class. Now, friends, it was not because I had great art. And yet, for all of the abominations that I made as art pieces.

None of them turned around and said, Mark, this isn't going very well, is it? You really want to put a hand there? You know, it's not happening. It's a ridiculous thing. And God is saying, It's that same kind of ridiculous thing for us to tell God, this is what you should be doing in my life.

No, friends, we receive from God's sovereign hand. We need to look up and realize the difference between us and God. He is the Creator. We are the creation. And friends, as we look up, we know that the God in heaven is not cruel.

No, this is our Father in heaven. The Heidelberg Catechism, question and answer 27, is so helpful on this point. What do you understand by the providence of God? It is the almighty, everywhere present power of God whereby, as with his hand, he still upholds heaven and earth and all creatures, and so governs them that leaf and grass, rain and drought, fruitful and barren years, food and drink, health and riches, health and sickness, riches and poverty. Indeed, all things come not by chance but by his fatherly hand.

Friends, that belief in the providence of God is what gets you through the Christian life. That these things are not in my life by accident. The God who loves me in Jesus Christ has put them here for my good. And friends, we also need to look forward. You see it there in verse 13, God's purpose is for his people.

I have stirred Cyrus up in righteousness and I will make all his ways level. He shall build my city and set my exiles free. Not for price or reward, says the Lord of hosts. Oh friends, in this, God is showing his people that they have a bright future. That though they might not understand his ways in the present, it will end gloriously.

Them. And friends, this was always a sign of what God would ultimately do in salvation. That as the people go back to their land and they dwell once again in the place that God would dwell with them, it was looking forward to the great salvation that would bring us home to heaven and to that forever home with God where we will know peace with Him and joy forevermore. Beloved, if God is bringing us home to that blessed city City, we can trust him even when we don't understand what he's doing. And in that, friend, it means that we don't need to rejoice in suffering itself.

We don't need to rejoice in cancer or in childlessness or in miscarriages. Oh no, but friend, we do cherish those hard things in the hand of a sovereign God as instruments that he will use to bring us home to the heavenly city. He will not waste a stroke. The Father will prune and discipline those that he loves. And so, looking forward to the place where God is leading us, we trust him.

We take comfort under his providential care. But then also we look back. We look back at what Christ has done for us. This passage in so far as it talks about messianic hope and this new exodus is ultimately pointing us to what Jesus would do for his people. Oh, the Lord would bring his anointed, his Messiah, his his very son, the Lord Jesus, to do what Cyrus could only picture.

The Lord Jesus would obey the law for his people, fulfilling the righteousness that they themselves could never win. That he would bear the curse in their place, bearing away all the sin that they should have been punished for. He was raised again to bring new life to all those who would trust in him. Oh, this Messiah would work to glorify the Lord and to do good to to his people. And friends, for us as Christians, we look back on the great work of Christ, that in God's sovereign plan, he put forward his son to accomplish all this for us.

And we view life by looking back on Jesus. If God gave his own son for me, I can trust him in this thing that I don't understand right now. The Lord is the sovereign savior, indeed the only savior, and so we take comfort under his sovereign care. Point number two, last half of the text, we'll be briefer. Point number two, take hold of his gracious promises.

If the Lord is the only Savior, we should take hold of his gracious promises. Essentially, verses 14 to 25 find the sovereign plan of God flourishing into this glorious flower of salvation. It essentially breaks down into 14 and 17 and then another perspective on it at the end of the text. Look there with me at verse 14. Thus says the Lord, the wealth of Egypt and the merchandise of Cush, and the Sabeans, men of stature, shall come over to you and be yours.

They shall follow you. They shall come over in chains and bow down to you. They will plead with you, saying, 'Surely God is in you, and there is no other, no God besides Him.' Verse 14 is a surprising verse. These nations, some of which, like Egypt, are classically enemies of God's people are coming over to Israel as if they were defeated foes. As if there was some military conquest that had made them come to the people of God and bow down.

But the conquest is not from political machinations or military dominance. No, the conquest is through conversion. You see it there at the end of verse 14. They will plead with you saying, Surely God is in you and there is no other no other, no God besides him. These nations who are formerly strangers of the covenant of promise, who would not know God, have all of a sudden come to know that God is the one to be worshiped, to be trusted, the only one that they can follow.

It is a flowering of the promise that God made to Abraham. You remember all the way back in Genesis chapter 12, in you all of the nations will be blessed. That God will work not only salvation for his people Israel, but for the expansive people of God, all of whom would trust in his promises. Anyone who would share the faith of true Israel would be right with him and would join with his people. That glorious hope is striking to Isaiah.

You see it there in verse 15, Truly, you are a God who hides himself. O God of Israel, the Savior, It's an amazing thing that God has worked from this small nation of Israel, this great global salvation that he is bringing all the people across all of the nations who would trust in his name together as one people of God. It's the beginnings of what Paul will refer to in Galatians chapter 6 as the Israel of God. This nation not formed of ethnicity, but of shared faith in the same Savior. And this greatness is borne out in two different faiths for two different peoples.

Verse 16 identifies those who do not follow, who do not follow these Sabeans and Egyptians and others in joining the people of Israel through faith. All of them, Isaiah writes, are put to shame and confounded. The makers of idols go in confusion together. It's just important to note here not every faith will lead you to heaven. There are some things you can trust sincerely and they will end in your shame.

That is to say, the thing that you have trusted in will be empty when you come before the Lord. That when you come before the Lord and you say, oh, I'm going to be in heaven, you will be forever ashamed and set apart from him because you have not trusted rightly. But that is not the fate of the people of God. Verse 17, But Israel is saved by the Lord with everlasting salvation. You shall not be put to shame or confounded to all eternity.

Israel, the true people of God who trust in God's promises, they would find not shame in the end, but everlasting salvation. They would never have to fear again. They are not ending in shame but in glory and in honor. Friends, isn't that such a good reminder for us in the Christian life? There are many ways in which we are shamed in this world.

We don't participate in the sins of those around us. When we seem to be wasting our lives doing the things that God has called us to do. And what God is reminding us of here in verse 17 is when it comes to the final accounting, we will never be ashamed. We will look back and we will see, this is glory. I did not waste my life in following the Lord Jesus.

And we get a different perspective on verses 14 to 17 in the last part of the text, verses 18 to 25. We essentially see here God calling the idolatrous nations to account and offering them a gracious promise. Look there at verse 18. For thus says the Lord, who created the heavens, he is God, who formed the earth and made it, he established it, he He did not create it empty, he formed it to be inhabited. I am the Lord and there is no other.

So the first part of the Lord's argument is, I created everything, I alone am the Lord. No other God created anything, I am the one creator, the one Lord. He furthers that argument in verse 19, I did not speak in secret in a land of darkness. I did not say to the offspring of Jacob, 'Seek me in vain. I the Lord speak the truth, I declare what is right. '

Not only in God's creative work does he show himself to be the one Lord, but also in his work of revelation. No God speaks the way the God of Israel speaks to his people. This is not trying to discern the future through looking at the stars or the entrails of animals. No, no, no. God is going to show his people what is to come by speaking to them, by condescending to them and speaking a word that is clear, plain, and reliable.

No one speaks like this God, he alone is God. And so on that basis then, verse 20, Assemble yourselves and come, draw near together, you survivors of the nations. They have no knowledge who carry about their wooden idols and keep on praying to a God that cannot save. Declare and present your case, let them take counsel together who told this long ago, who declared it of old. Was it not I, the Lord?

And there is no other God besides me, a righteous God and a Savior, there is none besides me. So we see God engaging with idolaters, people naturally like us who worship other things. And he's saying, I alone am God, the things that you are trusting in will not bear the weight of eternity. And friends, that's true across a great spectrum of things. We've been thinking even this afternoon, what are those things that I'm tempted to trust in to get me to my eternal home that isn't the Lord?

That could be a great number of answers. For some of us, religiously, we trust what we can do. If I only obey enough, if I only add enough to what Jesus has done, then God will accept me. Others of us answer this in a material way. Oh, if I only have the family that I want, if I'm only successful enough in my career, if I only make enough money, that will bring me to my forever home.

But the problem, dear friends, is that this life is soon passing away. The question is not finally, how will I do best in this life? But how will I do best in the life that is to come? This life is short. That life lasts for all eternity.

Will your hopes last beyond death? If not, friends, They will not save you. They will be of no help to you finally. But the Lord doesn't bring the nations to himself finally to just lambast them and to make them ashamed. No, he does it to offer them true salvation.

Look at it there in verse 22. Turn to me and be saved, all the ends of the earth, for I am God and there is no other. By myself I have sworn, for my mouth has gone out in righteousness, a word that shall not return. To me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear allegiance. Only in the Lord it shall be said of me, our righteousness and strength to him shall come and be ashamed all who were incensed against him.

And the Lord all the offspring of Israel shall be justified and shall glory. Friends, you should not miss the glory in verse 22. It is one of the most precious promises in the Bible. God addressing idolaters like us says, Turn to me and be saved all the ends of the earth. And friends, that promise is something that you could just think about in your mind all day and come up with a thousand different applications.

I wish we had a whole Lord's Day just to think about this one verse. It'd be a different sermon if so. But friends, think about a few different applications with me. First, for someone that doesn't know Jesus. For someone that doesn't understand themselves to be a Christian, I hope you see this promise is for you.

That when you hear the gospel preached, that Christ really did do everything necessary in order to save you, God is not lying to you. If you take him by faith, you will be saved. The New Testament equivalent of this is John chapter six that Mark read to us earlier. All that the Father has given me will come to me, and all who come to me I will in no wise cast out. Friends, Jesus has done enough to bring you to heaven.

You simply have to trust him. To trust him, to turn from these other things and simply to look on the Son and so be saved. It tells us something about the sufficiency of Christ as a Savior, doesn't it? Because what the verb is is not prepare yourselves, do more, do better. Rather, it's simply to turn, to look, to trust, to rest.

We can turn in that way because Christ has done all that is necessary to make us right with God and bring us to our eternal home. And so friend, you don't need to feel bad enough about your sin. You don't need to work to clean yourself up a little bit more in order to come to Jesus. Those forms of preparation will do you no eternal good. You simply take hold of God's gracious promise.

He says to you, Come. He says to you, Turn and you will be saved. Another way that we apply this promise is to those who struggle with assurance. The Christian who looks back on their sin and thinks, oh, God is against me. I've done too much.

Friend, we need to take hold of this gracious promise that whatever we have done in the Christian life, no matter how many sins we can stack up, it does not compare to the work of Christ on our behalf. When your conscience condemns you and says that you deserve death in hell, tell them this: I have turned to Christ and I shall be saved. That's the logic of the verse, friends. We should use this promise in evangelism. We as a church can be confident in our preaching of Christ because we have such a gracious and good gospel.

We really get to tell people, Come and turn to Jesus and you will be saved. God will get his eternal glory. You see that in verse 23, don't you? They will acknowledge Christ everywhere. This is fulfilled in Philippians 2 when Jesus is given a name above all names so that at the name of Jesus all will bow to him and confess him.

That's the glory that we see here. And so friends, we can labor on confidently in evangelism even though this door gets shut in our face over and over and over again because God will use his gospel to bring his people home. All of God's people will be saved by this gospel. So let's be bold and cheerful Friends, this promise is for the kids of the church. It is easy for you in a church like this to learn a lot about the law of God, what you should do with your life.

It's a really good thing to learn. But do not miss this promise. You must finally turn to Jesus or you will not be saved. The only way to be right with God is to trust him, to turn from sin and to trust in the Lord Jesus Christ.

Christ. Friends, this precious promise ought to pervade our heart in times of doubt, when we are tempted to trust in other things. We use this great promise to ward off those things. But then look at the very end of the text, verses 24 to 25. It looks at our eternal destiny once again, but from a slightly different lens.

Only in the Lord it shall be said of me, Our righteousness and strength. To him shall come and be ashamed, all who are incensed against him. In the Lord all the offspring of Israel shall be justified and shall glory. There will come a day when those who are at war, at enmity, and rebellion against the Lord will come and say through gritted teeth that God alone is God. But for God's people, for those who trust in this promise now and who turn to the Lord Jesus Christ that day shall be a day of glorying.

We will not be sent off into eternal shame. We will be declared righteous, justified through the Lord Jesus Christ. And forever in that perfect eternal home, we will dwell with God and will glory in him for all eternal ages. This God who sovereignly cares for his people, this God who has graciously saved his people, all who take hold of that promise, we shall spend all all of eternity glorying in the Lord. Who is like this God that brings sinners like us home?

And what a home to which he brings us, a place of life and love and joy and eternal glory. Friends, only the Lord is the Savior, and so we should take hold of his gracious promise. Charles Spurgeon, who struggled to find salvation as a young child, finally did find it. He was looking for a place to worship one day, and as he writes, I sometimes think I might have been in darkness and despair until now had it not been for the goodness of God in sending a snowstorm one Sunday morning while I was going to a certain place of worship. When I could go no further, I turned down a side street and came to a little primitive Methodist chapel.

The minister did not come that morning. He was snowed up, I suppose. At last a very thin looking man, a shoemaker or a tailor or something of that sort, went up into the pulpit to preach. Now it is well that preachers should be instructed, but this man was really stupid. He was obliged to stick to his text for the simple reason that he had little else to say.

The text was, Look unto me and be ye saved all the ends of the earth.

Isaiah 4522. He did not even pronounce the words rightly. But that did not matter. There was, I thought, a glimpse of hope for me in that text. The preacher began thus, My dear friends, this is a very simple text indeed.

It says, Look. Now, looking don't take a great deal of pains and ain't lifting your foot or your finger. It is just look. Well, a man didn't go to college to learn to look. You may be the biggest fool A fool and yet you can look.

A man need not be worth a thousand a year to be able to look. Anyone can look, even a child can look. But then the text says, Look unto me, I and he said in broad Essex, Many on ye are looking to yourselves, but it's no use looking there. You'll never find any comfort in yourselves. Look to Christ, the text says.

Look unto me. Then he looked at me under the gallery. And I dare say, with so few present, he knew me to be a stranger, just fixing his eyes on me as if he knew all my heart. He said, Young man, you look very miserable.

Well, I did, but I had not been accustomed to have remarks made from the pulpit on my personal appearance before. However, it was a good blow struck right home. He continued, and you always will be miserable, miserable in life and miserable in death if you don't obey my text. But if you obey now, this moment, you will be saved. Then lifting up his hands, he shouted, as only a primitive Methodist could, Young man, look to Jesus Christ.

Look, look, look. You have nothing to do but to look and live. I saw at once the way of salvation. I know not what else he said. I did not take much care to notice.

I was so possessed with that one thought. I had been waiting to do 50 things, but when I heard that word look, what a charming word it seemed to me. Oh, I looked until I could almost have looked my eyes away. There and then the cloud was gone, the darkness had rolled away, and that moment I saw the Son, and I could have risen that instant and sung with the most enthusiastic of them of the precious blood of Christ and the simple faith which looks to Him alone. Charles Spurgeon turned and looked to Jesus and found his way to his eternal home.

The Lord is the only Savior. So won't you take comfort in His sovereign care and take hold of His gracious promise won't you turn and trust in Jesus? Only he can bring you safely home. Let me pray.

Father in heaven, you are a great God and greatly to be praised. And yet you, in your greatness, are gracious with sinners like us. You bend all of history towards the good of your people and hold out to the worst of sinners the best of news. We pray, God, that you would work faith in our hearts, that we would take hold of your gracious promise. In Jesus' name we pray.

Amen.