{"id":6989,"date":"2015-10-08T00:05:06","date_gmt":"2015-10-08T07:05:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/?p=6989"},"modified":"2015-10-07T11:14:31","modified_gmt":"2015-10-07T18:14:31","slug":"the-messiah-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/2015\/10\/08\/the-messiah-2\/","title":{"rendered":"The Messiah"},"content":{"rendered":"

The LORD said to Cyrus, his chosen one:
\nI have taken hold
\nof your right hand
\nto help you capture nations
\nand remove kings from power.
\nCity gates will open for you;
\nnot one will stay closed.
\nAs I lead you,
\nI will level mountains
\nand break the iron bars
\non bronze gates of cities.
\nI will give you treasures
\nhidden in dark
\nand secret places.
\nThen you will know that I,
\nthe LORD God of Israel,
\nhave called you by name.
\nCyrus, you don\u2019t even know me!
\nBut I have called you by name
\nand highly honored you
\nbecause of Israel,
\nmy chosen servant.
\nOnly I am the LORD!
\nThere are no other gods.
\nI have made you strong,
\nthough you don\u2019t know me.
\nNow everyone from east to west
\nwill learn that I am the LORD.
\nNo other gods are real.
\nI create light and darkness,
\nhappiness and sorrow.
\nI, the LORD, do all of this. (Isaiah 45:1-7)<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

God really can use anyone. The word translated by \u201cchosen one\u201d is the Hebrew word that comes into English as \u201cMessiah\u201d or by way of its Greek equivalent, \u201cChrist.\u201d The word more literally means \u201canointed one\u201d and refers to how priests and kings had oil poured on their heads when they took their positions of authority. <\/p>\n

Cyrus, the pagan king of Persia, the man who conquered Babylon and issued a decree that the captives of Israel could go home and rebuild God\u2019s temple in Jerusalem, was chosen by God for just that task. God had \u201canointed\u201d him to perform a valuable service: to defeat the enemies of his people Israel, to rescue them, and to set them free. <\/p>\n

Even though Cyrus didn\u2019t know God, God knew him and used him for his own purposes. Thanks to Cyrus, a pagan, many people would come to know the one true God. God pointed out that there were no other gods. Yahweh alone existed. From Yahweh alone came all that there was, whether light or dark, good or bad, happiness or sorrow. The universe as it exists in all its many states was a consequence of God\u2019s creative effort.<\/p>\n

We must never imagine that simply because God used us that it means everything is okay between us and God. How useful we are to God doesn\u2019t prove our righteousness. God used a pagan idolater and called him his Messiah, after all. <\/p>\n

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The LORD said to Cyrus, his chosen one: I have taken hold of your right hand to help you capture nations and remove kings from power. City gates will open for you; not one will stay closed. As I lead … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_s2mail":"yes"},"categories":[18,17,16],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6989"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6989"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6989\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6991,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6989\/revisions\/6991"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6989"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6989"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6989"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}