Were in the Book of Ezra this morning. Right off the bat, let's turn to Ezra 1. Youre thinking, Okay. We're talking about history this morning. The pastor has opened the book up to the Book of Ezra. Get your elbows ready, Hazel, its going to be a snoozer this morning. Im going to need a poke every now and then. I can assure you, thats not the case. Were going to read a passage of scripture that is historical, but if Ive done my job, if you were to read it again later on, its going to take on a whole new significance to you. This is page 461 [from Ezra 1]. The year is 538 B.C. Does everybody have it? Okay. In the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, in order to fulfill the Word of the Lord spoken by Jeremiah, the Lord moved the heart of Cyrus king of Persia to make a proclamation throughout his realm and to put it in writing: This is what Cyrus king of Persia says: The Lord, the God of Heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth, and He has appointed me to build a temple for Him at Jerusalem in Judah. Well stop there. What is the name of the king? Cyrus. What is the name of his kingdom? Persia. And what is he called to do? To issue a decree to rebuild the temple. He acknowledges God is giving him a kingdom. A little historical tidbit this morning: We all know of Alexander the Great and other world dictators. No one has ever ruled more area, more space-a bigger area of the globe, than Cyrus of Persia, so those words are certainly true. Now, were going to talk about what happened before those words were spoken. Turn in your Bibles to Isaiah 46 (Page 723 of pew Bibles). While youre turning there, you are saying so far, Pastor, this is a snoozer, man. Youre wrong. Hang with me. How many of you have been in traffic…Maybe theres construction you didnt know about. Something has happened on the toll road, and its backed up. Its moving slow. Sometimes its not moving at all. You say, I wish I never would have gotten on this road. I wish I would have gotten off at the last exit. This is a mistake. Then you look across the way, and you see traffic flowing. You say, I wish I were over there. Those people are lucky. Or, youve been at the opposite end of the spectrum. Youve been cruising along and looked at the oncoming traffic going the other direction, and theyre at a total standstill for miles. You say, I sure am glad I am not over there. When I come home, Im going to make sure I go a different route. Thats called learning from history. The same thing is true in life. Sometimes you and I will make mistakes, and well say, I should have never agreed to that contract. I should have never taken this job. I should have never become friends with that person. I should never have started this project. I should have never bought that car. Hands would go up all over the place for that one. Ive learned from my mistakes. Im not going to do that again, right? How many of you have ever said that and then went and repeated the same mistake years down the road? A bunch of knuckleheads, myself included. Hard-headed stubborn people. Or, we have watched somebody else make a mistake, and we have seen the heartache and the consequences; and weve said, I dont want to ever do that because I see the pain it has brought. Thats learning from history. We do that. In the Book of Isaiah 46, God is speaking to the people of Israel who are economically prosperous but spiritually impoverished. They are beginning to follow the gods of Babylon as referenced in the first verse when he says, Bel bows down, Nebo stoops low; their idols are born by beasts of burden. Bel was the Babylon equivalent of Baal, and Nebo was his son according to their gods. Of course, we know Nebuchadnezzar and Belteshazzar. We can see the names of those Pagan Gods in their names. And so that influence had infiltrated Israel, and Israel was in idolatry. Instead of serving the living God, they began to bow down to idols and statues and things made by man. God said as a result of that, Punishment is going to come your way. You are going to be taken captive. You are going to be exiled to a foreign land. Isaiah speaks of this in the 39th chapter of this book. He tells King Hezekiah that another country is going to come down, and, Youre going to be taken captive. For 70 years, Jeremiah also prophesized that they would be taken captive by the Babylonians, and that is fulfilled. And into exile they go. Nebuchadnezzars desire is that they forget the Lord, their God, and they follow after the pagan-the babylonian gods. In fact, they even worship his image. But Israel will not do that. Israel will continue to serve and follow; certainly a remnant will. Eventually, God is going to bring them back to the Holy Land. Why? Jesus is to be born. Where? Where do the prophets say He will be born? In Bethlehem. Micah 5:2 tells us that the King, the Messiah, will come from Bethlehem. We know from the prophesies in Isaiah that the Holy One will be born in Israel. So, if that is to happen, Israel must do what? They must return to the Holy Land. They cannot stay in Babylon. Were going to see how our God is the God of history and how He accomplishes His purpose. Lets start with Verse 8 [of Isaiah 46] (page 723). Remember this, fix it in mind, take it to heart, you rebels. Its talking about us stubborn people who dont learn from our mistakes. Remember the former things, those of long ago… God is saying history is significant. We learn from history. We learn about ourselves, and we learn about Him through our history. Remember it. I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me. I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times, what is still to come. God does not see like you and I. We get caught by the traffic jams; we get caught by the accidents; we get caught with the detours because we dont see them. God sees them. God sees the whole road. He knows every twist and turn and bump. He does not see as you and I. The next page, begin reading with the rest of Verse 10, I say: My purpose will stand, and I will do all that I please. That is a workable definition of sovereignty. Say sovereignty. When we say God is sovereign, that means Gods purposes will be accomplished. You are free to choose or reject Him, to follow after Him or go your own way. However, His purposes will not be ported by your decision. He is sovereign, and His will will be accomplished. From Verse 11, From the east I summon a bird of pretty; from a far-off land, a man to fulfill my purpose. What I have said, that will I bring about; what I have planned, that will I do. So the bird of prey Hes talking about from the east is actually a man. If you go east of Judah, what county do you find in those times? Persia. So the man we are speaking of from the east, this bird of prey that will swoop in to accomplish the purposes of God is a man named Cyrus whose prophesy was fulfilled as we read in Ezra 1. Now were going to see something really cool. When I first learned of this, probably back in the late 70s while preparing for ministry, it just blew me away. Turn to Isaiah 44:28 (page 721). God is speaking through Isaiah, and He says, ...who says of Cyrus, He is my shepherd and will accomplish all that I please; he will say of Jerusalem, Let it be rebuilt, and of the temple, Let its foundation be laid. When does Isaiah write? In the mid-700s. Heres what gets really cool: God is speaking for a man who will not be born for almost 200 years, and He is telling us exactly what that man will do and how He will accomplish his purpose. Is God sovereign? Is God the God of history? This isnt one of those horoscope prophesy kind of things. This isnt one of the vague generalities that you read in the newspaper, This is a good day to make a friend kind of thing. This is talking about a man by name who will come from the country of Persia and who will deliver Israel to rebuild the temple. Isaiah likes this, by the power of God. Now, something very interesting happens. In Chapter 45, God begins to speak to Cyrus. Help me, you Bible scholars out there. You cross trainers out there. You help me. But its pretty rare, if not unique, that God speaks to an individual by name in scripture hundreds of years before he is born, by specific name. God is now, in Isaiah 45, beginning to speak directly to a person. The verses we are about to read are written to a person yet to be born. I want to stress that. This is what the Lord says to His anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I take hold of to subdue nations before him and to strip kings of their armor… Look at Verse 5; flip over one page. Still speaking to Cyrus, He says, I am the Lord, and there is not other; apart from me there is no God. I will strengthen you… Cyrus, …though you have not acknowledged me… Cyrus did not acknowledge God. You are thinking, I thought we read in Ezra 1 that he mentioned God and all of that. What Cyrus did was very different than what conquerors would do historically. Normally, I would come into your culture, if Im a conquering king, and strip you of your religion, tear down your altars, your temples, and your idols of worship and make you conform to my God. He didnt do that. He was a monotheist; he believed in one God, but he didnt worship the God of Israel. What he would do was he would try to placate the gods of the countries that he would overtake. You might say he was a benevolent dictator. So when Cyrus takes over Babylon, he says to the Israelites, who are going oh no, whats this landlord going to be like? he says, Go home. Go home. Build your temple. Rebuild your city. Ill help you do it. There is probably not a Gentile in the history of Israel with more esteem than was King Cyrus. He said, Go worship your God; youre under our rule, but you go home and you worship your God. So Israel returns, but the Messiah can be born there. Look in Verse 12 back in Chapter 46 (page 724). He says, Listen to me, you stubborn-hearted, you who are far from righteousness. I am bringing my righteousness near, it is not far away; and my salvation will not be delayed. I will grant salvation to Zion, and my splendor to Israel. Salvation is coming to the Holy Land. Delivery is going to be born. The Redeemer is going to come, and Gods people will come back. They will reestablish as a nation; and from there, salvation will come to the whole world, and this prophesy will be fulfilled. When I see Gods hand in history like this, do you know what it makes me do? It makes me trust. It makes me know that when things seem dark, and Im in a traffic jam, metaphorically speaking, I hit a roadblock, I hit a detour or a wreck I did not expect, and Im frustrated and angry and upset, God is still in control. You have put your hope and trust in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob-the God who speaks to people before theyre even born by name, and says, You will fulfill my purpose. Hes a sovereign God. He is the God that we serve, that even when things seem dark, He is still sovereign, and guess what? We only see a glimpse. We only see what lies ahead, but He sees the whole thing. You and I only see a chapter, a page, but God knows the whole book, so we can trust in Him because Hes the God of history. Isaiah 53, theres a famous prophesy if youll turn there. Isaiah 53 is the most astounding prophesy concerning the Messiah that has ever been written. Again, Isaiah writes 700 years before the birth of Christ, and he foretells of the sufferings of Christ and the details of His life and of His death with breath-taking accuracy in a manner we can only say that the Lord, Jesus Christ, the historical Jesus of Nazareth, fulfilled these verses spoken 700 years before he was born. Lets join in the prophesy in Verse 4 (page 731), Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered Him stricken by God… Isaiah is going to write of a future event as though it were past tense because why? God sees the end from the beginning. So he is writing of the Messiah coming, suffering and dying, and being resurrected, but he is speaking of it in a past tense. They thought He was smitten by God; they thought He was punished by God when He died on the cross, but He was pierced for our transgressions; He was crushed for our inequities. The word pierced in the Hebrew is always used for a literal piercing. It is not used in a metaphoric sense. I might say, Boy those words pierced my heart. The scripture doesnt use it in that way. Its always meant for a piercing of the skin, a breaking of the skin, by an object. It says this suffering servant, this servant of mine, will be pierced-literally-for our transgressions, for our sins. (Pick up on verse 5 of Isaiah 53, page 731)) …He was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon Him, and by His wounds we are healed. Not a physical peace, but a spiritual peace, and that which alienates us from God, has been resolved. The debt of sin has been paid, but not just the debt, the crimes that have been committed against God. When we sin, we break moral law; we commit crimes. Its not just a debt thats erased. Its a crime that must be atoned for. Justice must be served since God is just. So, Christ bears that punishment for us. (Pick up here on verse 6 of Isaiah 53) We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed and afflicted, yet He did not open His mouth; He was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is silent, so He did not open his mouth. Other than His testimony in private before Pontius Pilate, as they were beating Him publicly, as they were striking Him and pulling out His beard, as they were cursing upon the cross, He did not say a word in His defense. [Continuing on with Isaiah 53:8] By oppression and judgment, He was taken away. And who can speak of His descendants? For He was cut off from the land of the living… The person who was pierced for sin is going to die says Isaiah. …for the transgression or sin of my people He was stricken. He was assigned a grave with the wicked… He was supposed to be buried between two thieves. …but with the rich in His death… Nope, Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus took Him down from the cross, and in a rich mans tomb He was laid. Astoundingly accurate is the prophesy of Isaiah, breathtaking details of the death of Christ. [Continuing on with the rest of Isaiah 53:9] …though He had done no violence, nor was any deceit found in His mouth. Heres what we hone in on, Verse 10, Yet it was the Lords will to crush Him and cause Him to suffer… Stop right there. If you just stopped right there, and that was the end of the chapter, youd come to the conclusion that God is pretty mean. Why would you want to cause an innocent person to suffer? We just said Hed done nothing wrong. There was no inequity in Him. There was no sin in Him, yet God was pleased to cause Him to suffer, to have pain, to crush. It was Gods will, it says. The word will means desire, and God desired His servant to suffer and die. That sounds pretty harsh. When we look at the cross, did the disciples of Jesus take joy in His death? When He gave up His spirit and He hung His head, did they go, Oh! Awesome! Our God reigns! Did they see Gods purpose? They cried. They ran. They gave up the dream. They hid, and when they thought the coast was clear, they came out of hiding and said, Lets go back to fishing. The dream is over. As far as they knew, it was gone. We thought He was the one; we were wrong. It was quite an adventure, but its over. Well get on with our lives. Did Mary or the friends of Jesus look upon the cross as a great victory? It was a loss of a son; it was a loss of a brother; it was the loss of a friend, and He was not going to return. They saw that as something awful, yet the Bible says, God was pleased with it. Why? Because God sees the end from the beginning; because He is sovereign, because He is working in and through history to accomplish His purpose. God looks at the suffering of His son, and He sees you and me. He sees the church; He sees redemption; He sees the good that will come of it. Sometimes when you and I are going through suffering, all we see is the darkness. All we experience is the heartache, and we just shake our heads and think, Why, God? You dont see the whole story, church. You dont see the end. You see a chapter. You see a page, but the God of history, the God who is sovereign is your God. God has said, I will bring about My purposes in your life. Its in those times of darkness that we trust Him. Its those times that the disciples said, God, what is going on, Father? Why dont You save Him? Its those times when Jesus said, My God! My God! Why have Thou forsaken Me? But God had not forsaken Him. God does not and will not forsake you. Read in this passage further. We see the resurrection here. It says, ...and though the Lord makes His life a guilt offering… In other words, His life is literally going to be a sacrifice. …He will see his offspring… That is, you and I; we are His offspring; we are His children; we are the ones who believed in Him. …and prolong his days, and the will of the Lord will prosper in His hand. Wait a second, I thought He was dead. Whats going on? After the suffering of His soul, He will see the light of life and be satisfied. Life from death. …by His knowledge, my righteous servant will justify man… Thats you and us, you and I. …and He will bear their iniquities. Just one of those stab in the dark prophesies, Isaiah. You just got lucky that time. Do you see here in history that God is the God of history? God is the God who was sovereign? It encourages us to persevere when things get dark because we know what God has said in His Word. In 1 Corinthians 15:58 (page 1140), Be steadfast. Be immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain. Your life matters. What were doing as a church matters in the King of God. God has allowed you and me to be part of history, to be part of His redemptive plan. We are making history. My aunt passed away. She was 95 years old. Every time I spoke to my aunt, she reminded me of my heritage. I would say, Hello Aunt Gully. Hello Ya-free [instead of Jeffrey], how are ewe? We are Svenska. My four grandparents were born there. My father was born there, and my cousin recently sent our family a family tree from Sweden. Im processing it now, but it has traced my relatives on my fathers side back before the beginnings of America. Its pretty cool. There are a couple of things Ive noticed. One is I noticed a trend. Everybody I read about seems to die. Theres a trend there. So your own mortality strikes you right between the eyes. Youre like, Im part of that tree, and pretty soon, Im going to be a dash and a date. It really hits you. I dont know if youve ever seen a family tree or not. The second thing that dawned on me is all these names of people that I dont know and never will because they were born before photography, and their histories are long gone. Because they existed, Im here. Because they lived and carried out their lives, married, had children, those children had children: because of that, Im here. So I am from them, a part of them. It just gave me a greater understanding of my heritage. Friends, our church is a part of a heritage. Have you ever stopped to think about Faith Community 40-50 years from now? Have you ever stopped to think about that? I do. I think about it all the time. My desire wasnt to start a church that as soon as I kicked the bucket would go away. My desire is to build a church that is about bringing people to faith and maturity in Christ for long after you and I are gone. Thats my hope and desire. We are building a legacy for our future. Should the Lord provide, 40-50 years from now, I pray that Faith Community Church is right here in this community, still proclaiming the Gospel, supporting missions around the world, sending out missionaries, discipling people. Thats my prayer. The building that were trying to build, thats in the future for them, thatll be the old building, that the roof leaks in and the carpeting needs replacing, and the parking lot needs to be redone. But, more important than the structures is the faith that we are carrying to the next generation. They will not know our names. They will gather at celebrations. They will look at pictures of you and me, of church baptisms or groundbreakings and other ceremonies, theyll watch you at a picnic eating potato salad, but they wont know your name. You know what? They will recognize that because of you, they are here. You played a part in them coming to Christ, that your life made a difference in their lives. You and I dont know the full impact of our ministry, as individuals and as a church. We have no way to comprehend that because we see just whats in front of us. We see just our lifetime, but God sees the future generations; not only our children, but our childrens children are going to grow to serve and know the Lord because of your faith. We have no idea that from this body of believers that God might raise up another Billy Graham, or a missionary to go to parts of the world where the Gospel has not been preached, or that God will raise up from this congregation your great-grandchild who will faithfully teach little children for 30 or 40 years and help build a solid generation of believers. Thats what were doing here. Were not just coming here just to have a good time and have some fun. We, it says, are making a difference in eternity. God is allowing us to be a part of history. What we do for Him is not in vain. So, Paul says keep on keeping on. Sometimes in ministry, you get tired, but you keep on keeping on. You know why you get tired? Because youre a pastor, and sheep make messes (congregation laughing), and somebody has to clean them up. Sometimes sheep make big messes, and its a tireless job. You keep on keeping on, and you do it as a family. Pretty soon, you see that God is doing something beyond what you could ever do. Hes using all of us to do it. We are a spiritual family tree for the generations to come. They wont know us, and we wont know them, but well impact their lives. The values that we uphold, the truths that we preach will be a foundation that they will go by. Remember that. Lets pray. Father, in our finite minds, we are blown away when we read in the scripture of you speaking to a man named Cyrus who was not yet born. You told him what he would do and how he would glorify Your name though he didnt call on Your name. We marvel at the prophesy of our Savior, who talked about His sufferings, His death, and His resurrection 700 years before He was born. We see that greatest, darkest hour in human history, and You said it pleased You because You see the end from the beginning. So were going through times of darkness. We dont understand whats going on. We know that we serve a God who doesnt scratch His head, a God who doesnt say oops, and a God who knows the end from the beginning, and He knows our end. We know youre a God who is working out His purposes even when we cant see, that will not draw a conclusion having read only one chapter of the book. but we know that You, the author, have it in Your hand, and we will trust you. Youre sovereign, and Youre good. In Jesus name I pray, Amen.