LIVING WATERS
For the proclamation of the Gospel and the edification of the Body of Christ
Everything Begins in God
Every work of God begins in God Himself. Of this, one of the most eloquent proofs is the restoration of the temple in Jerusalem after the Babylonian captivity. "The LORD awakened the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia" (Ezek. 1:1). This is the beginning of the work of restoration. A Gentile king, a pagan, dead in trespasses and sins, is touched by the hand of God to begin this magnificent work.
What is Cyrus without that touch of God on his spirit? What is Jerusalem and its temple but ruins and desolation? A sepulchral silence, a howling of wild beasts, is all there is. That is man before the touch of God. If God does not touch us, we will not remember him, nor his testimony. Everything sleeps the sleep of death.
However, when God acts, when he awakens the human spirit, however gentile and heathen man may be, and however lost he may be, he can declare: "Jehovah God has given me", and then "Jehovah God has commanded me". Man gives glory to God, attributing the initiative to Him. As we see, first God gives something to man, and then man works for God with what he has received. The beginning is God's and the resources are God's. Everything is of him, by him, and for him!
When God initiates something with a man, he himself endows him with the spiritual and material resources to carry out the work. Even if he is a Gentile and a pagan like Cyrus, and like us. Diligently, Cyrus devises a whole plan of action. He authorizes the Jews to travel to Jerusalem, urges them to take offerings for the work, returns the sacred utensils that Nebuchadnezzar had taken, gives orders for cedar wood to be brought from Lebanon, and makes available to the Jews all the necessary state apparatus. It seems like a miracle!
However, it is not. It is only the fulfillment of what God had spoken through Isaiah 150 years earlier, concerning Cyrus: "He is my shepherd, and he will accomplish all that I desire". And also: "I will go before thee, and set upright the crooked places; I will break in pieces the gates of brass, and break in pieces the bars of iron; and I will give thee the hidden treasures, and the secret things that are hid, that thou mayest know that I am the LORD God of Israel, which have given thee a name" (44:28; 45:2-3).
These are among the most beautiful words ever spoken to any man, and they were spoken to Cyrus! God had chosen him, and prospered him, so that he could do that work. God uses a Gentile man to save His people, and then to do His work. Is not Cyrus a living prophecy of what God would do in this time of grace, of the church, with other Gentiles?
But man cannot do the divine work independently of God. God is the only initiator, and who, moreover, chooses well in advance those who will carry it forward. God does not employ volunteers, but chosen ones. Let us bow down before him and worship him for his ways. Let us worship him for his choice, and ask him to grant us the grace to enter into his work.