Who on earth was Cyrus? (2)

In the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, in order to fulfil 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 also to put it in writing: This is what Cyrus king of Persia says… Ezra 1:1-2

Last time we saw how there are events described in the Bible which echo the writings of other ancient documents; and the words inscribed on the “Cyrus Cylinder”, discovered at Babylon in 1879, are a case in point. Reading the closing verses of 2 Chronicles and the opening verses of Ezra alongside the words on the Cylinder (you can find it on the internet) is very illuminating!

The big lesson from all this technical stuff was clear: God is in control of history.

The application to 2021 is obvious: as we look around us at modern day events, grim and even heart-breaking as they sometimes are – as we look around us at Afghanistan and China, at Myanmar and Russia, at Nigeria and America, at Poland and Belarus, at the coronavirus and at global warming – how can we not take a serious and prayerful interest in unfolding events? Isn’t it just a matter of Christ-like compassion to do so?

Christian, read your paper alongside your Bible!

Though we can be confident that the end is sure, we must never be complacent – saying, or perhaps just thinking, “Oh well, God is in control, so we don’t need to bother too much”. No! God’s heart must ache over the sorrows that he sees; shouldn’t ours, then, do the same?

But if that is the main lesson of these passages, there are others too that came to mind…

First, the accuracy of the Bible.

King Cyrus didn’t see the events described on his Cylinder in quite the same way as the Bible writers did; it would have surprised him, for example, to learn that “the Lord” had “moved his heart”! – he, no doubt, saw his enlightened policy as purely his own idea. But the two accounts dovetail together well, and that reminds us that, in general, we can trust the essential accuracy of what the Bible says.

Not that there aren’t difficulties and problems in reconciling some biblical accounts with other, secular, accounts: there certainly are, and plenty. Even Bible scholars who hold most strongly to the inspiration of scripture recognise that not all the “contradictions” can be easily explained. But we can be assured that the Bible is, in essence, trustworthy.

Second, God has all sorts of things up his sleeve.

Who, in those dark days five hundred years before Jesus, would have guessed that the liberty of Israel would come about through an idol-worshipping, pagan king! Yet so it was.

True, the prophets of God knew better. If you turn to Isaiah 44:24-45:13 you find Cyrus (yes, the very same man) described as God’s “shepherd” (44:28) and even as his “anointed” (45:1), a title which belongs ultimately to Jesus the “Messiah” (that’s what “anointed” means). But how far that truth had penetrated through to “ordinary” Israelites we cannot know.

The point is that God is a great springer of surprises, and we never know when he might do something that takes our breath away. Isn’t this one reason why we stubbornly persist in prayer, even when God has seemed for a long time deaf to our cries?

God has all the resources of the universe at his finger-tips, so… let’s pray to him… let’s plead with him… let’s shout at him if that’s how we honestly feel (he knows anyway, doesn’t he?)… let’s ask him to wake up (Psalm 44:23-26)… let’s pester him (Luke 18:1-8)… let’s say with wrestling Jacob “I will not let you go unless you bless me” (Genesis 32:22-32), even if we have to say it through gritted teeth.

Our prayers are never in vain, even the “unanswered” ones.

Leading on from that, a third truth: God often gives his people unexpected friends.

As we saw earlier, Cyrus was a worshipper of a Babylonian god called Marduk. In Isaiah 45:5 God makes clear that he is under no illusions about this (God under illusions? what a crazy thought!): “I am the Lord, and there is no other; apart from me there is no God. I will strengthen you [Cyrus], though you have not acknowledged me…”

As if to say: Cyrus, you may be a died-in-the-wool pagan, but you are going to be my instrument, a friend to my suffering people.

The idea that all the world hates us because we are followers of Jesus is just plain wrong. Didn’t Jesus himself tell his stern and over-zealous disciples - suspicious because someone using Jesus’ name was “not one of us” - that “whoever is not against us is for us” (Mark 9:40)?

Yes, all men and women are sinners in the sight of God and subject to his holy judgment. But in this messy world in which we live, with so many greys as well as blacks and whites, God sometimes in his sovereign grace chooses to use those we might naturally think of as enemies. And I can’t think of a better example of that than King Cyrus the Great of Persia. Can you?

Our God is always faithful. But don’t let anyone ever say that he is predictable…!

Loving Father, please help me always to hold on to you, even when you seem far away. And help me, too, never to tie you down to only what my feeble imagination can conceive. Amen.