45:1  Thus says the Lord to his anointed, to Cyrus, whom I grasp by the right hand, to subdue nations before him, to ungird the loins of rulers, opening doors ahead of him, letting no gates remain shut:

It’s physical, or temporal, and this is the temporal aspect of the servant’s mission.  As chapter 42 about the servant was the spiritual aspect of the servant’s mission.  Why does he divide them up?  Well Moses did a physical thing at the Exodus, but he also did a spiritual thing in tutoring Israel in the wilderness.  So Isaiah here has divided them, showing that this Cyrus person is not a complete figure.  He’s only half the equation.  He’s only the temporal aspect.  Same with the servant earlier on: he was only half of the equation, the spiritual aspect.  Is one aspect complete without the other?  No.  Isaiah has divided these types, and yet he also links them because he show by that great division that the one is not complete without the other.  And that leads us to understand that we have to read all of these servant passages together in order to get the ideal, in order to get the complete picture.  So the scholars who focus on Cyrus and go off on a tangent, they are like those confused idolaters that retreat in utter confusion because they see much, but really they don’t see it, and they hear much, but they really don’t hear it.  They are not discerning enough to see that there is much more going on here than just some name from a hundred years after the time of Isaiah.

And we see, as we saw in the end of chapter 44 a compound of Moses and Cyrus, here we see also a compound between Cyrus and someone else.  Cyrus is mentioned by name a second time.  “Thus says the Lord to his anointed, to Cyrus, whom I grasp by the right hand.”  Was Cyrus anointed of God anciently?  No.  Who was anointed?  The king of Israel was anointed.  He’s called “the Lord’s anointed.”  When Saul is king, David will not lift his hand against the Lord’s anointed, even though Saul persecuteth him.  The point is that the king was called the anointed one of God, the Messiah.  Messiah in Hebrew means “anointed one.”  So it says, “thus saith the Lord to his Messiah” in Hebrew, or “to his anointed.” 

“To Cyrus, whom I grasp by the right hand.”  Here we have a compound, or fusion, of the Israelite king, king David who was called the Lord’s anointed and was in the Lord’s favor (Saul was not), and Cyrus.  Another compound.  Not a pure historical person, neither here nor in 44.  “Whom I grasp by the right hand.”  But we also saw that he grasped the servant by the right hand earlier on.  Why?  Because they are the same individual.  These are not two individuals.  This is the just the temporal aspect here, and the spiritual aspect we read earlier.  “To subdue nations before him.”  The grasping of the hand is a royal accession motif, and it is an empowerment for a purpose: so that the servant might fulfill a mission.  When the Lord names him, grasps him by the right hand, or calls him and so forth, those are all empowerments for a purpose: to empower him to fulfill his role as deliverer.  And part of that deliverance is physical: to subdue nations before him, to ungird the loins of rulers, opening doors ahead of him, letting no gates remain shut.  If he is going to lead them on the exodus, he is going to have to release them from bondage, and he is going to have to meet with the opposition that Pharaoh or whoever is in power at the time will present.  Even nations and rulers.  Implying that there are going to be closed doors, that the gates are going to be shut, and it seems like he’s never going to be able to deliver them.  But when God empowers him, those things will present no obstacle, just like the fire and the waters that they walk through, they will be no obstacle. 

45:2  I will go before you and level all obstacles; I will break in pieces brazen doors and cut through iron bars.

In one of the Hebrew prophets, it mentions that one goes at the head of them in the exodus, like Moses, and breaks through the opposition, opens the gates.  And that’s the servant who does that.  “I will go before you and level all obstacles.”  The servant goes before them, as we see in many places, but it’s really the Lord who’s doing it.  The servant really has no power in himself—God empowers him.  Moses could have stood there all day holding his rod out over the Red Sea if God had not turned the waters away.  And so it is here.

“I will break in pieces brazen doors and cut through iron bars.”  Which indicates that perhaps the Iron Curtain, or some equivalent thing, will happen again.  Otherwise, why mention it?  It’s going to be that kind of opposition again.  Iron bars indicate prison.  And brazen doors aren’t easy to break through.  It implies that there is going to be severe bondage and captivity from which the people are going to be delivered.  Just like the Wall in East Germany or in East Berlin.

45:3  I will give you hidden treasures and secret hoards of wealth—that you may know that it is I the Lord, the God of Israel, who calls you by name.

Meaning physical, literal wealth.  Hoards that have been hoarded up by people, perhaps unrighteously in the past, or perhaps righteously.  And they will all be made available.  They have been kept in reserve.  Have you often heard of stories of people who’ve tried to dig up buried treasures and found that the treasures became slippery so they couldn’t get them, but they were there?  Those treasures have been hidden and kept in reserve for that time.  And they’ll support a different kind of economy, an economic structure, that supports the work of God rather than the manufacture of idols. 

“That you may know that it is I the Lord, the God of Israel, who calls you by name.”  Now here, it’s Cyrus who’s called by name.  And that calling by name is another one of those motifs like the grasping of the hand, that implies empowerment.  But we also saw that God calls the corporate servant by name.  In chapter 43 verse 1, it talks about Israel and Jacob: “for I have redeemed you, I have called you by name, and you are mine.”  That implies divine empowerment. And that empowerment, like I said, at that time occurs when they pass a test.  When the person being called or grasped by the hand passes the test of loyalty to the Lord.  Then they ascend the spiritual ladder.  When they are empowered in that way, that is their rebirth.  That’s when they are recreated on a higher level of the spiritual ladder.  They are not what they were before.  That’s why he calls it creation.  If you ascend the spiritual ladder and you are on a higher spiritual level, then you are no longer the same person you used to be.  You are created again, you are created anew.  That new person, or that new creation, means that the old one has died.  The allegory of Christ, of the seed, is like that.  The seed dies so that the plant may live.  It’s no longer a seed.  It’s a plant now.  You are no longer whoever you used to be.  You are now this higher person, who is empowered, who is called by a new name, who is grasped by the hand.  Every time one ascends the spiritual ladder, they receive a new name.  They are no longer Jacob or Israel when they become Zion or Jerusalem.  They are no longer Zion or Jerusalem when they become a Servant or Son, and so forth. 

This Cyrus figure, who is also a David figure, who is also a Moses figure, is here empowered by the Lord upon passing some kind of test of loyalty.  Some wonder what kind of test of loyalty that may be.  Well, in chapter 52 he’s marred.  He persists in fulfilling his mission to the extant that he’s even marred and almost dies, showing his loyalty to the Lord and his valor in being God’s witness.  When they do that to him, then the Lord heals him and empowers him, and gives him power over his enemies like that of Moses.  Moses did this.  So the servant is like Moses, having that kind of power.  Moses had more power than Pharaoh, and so does this servant have more power than the rulers and nations of the world.

45:4  For the sake of my servant Jacob, and Israel my chosen, I call you by name—I named you when yet you knew me not.

This empowerment is not to squander on his lusts, on himself.  “For the sake of my servant Jacob, and Israel my chosen, I call you by name— “  Not “for your own sake.” “For the sake of my servant Jacob, and Israel my chose, I call you by name.”  You whole mission is to them. “I named you and yet you knew me not.”  This may be alluding to another naming, perhaps some kind of foreordination.  Because in chapter 49 the servant says, “Before I was in my mother’s womb he mentioned me by name.  The Lord called me before I was in the belly.”  It appears as if there was a double naming.  One, before he was born, and another now that he has passed his tests and he is empowered to do these works.  And it’s all about redeeming Jacob or Israel, that category of the spiritual ladder that is still in a lost and fallen state, that needs delivering from captivity, that needs enlightening about the attributes of God, that needs indoctrination, that needs schooling in law and word of God, the terms of the covenant.

45:5  I am the Lord, there is none other; apart from me there is no God. I girded you up when yet you knew me not—

Again, alluding to some kind of foreordination.  Because not knowing God implies that he did not yet have a covenant relationship, or that the covenant was not yet confirmed upon him like it is now.  If you have a covenant relationship with someone, then you know them.  “Adam knew his wife Eve and she conceived and bore a son,” and so forth.  That defines a covenant relationship.

45:6  that men from where the sun rises to where it sets may know that without me there is nothing, that I am the Lord, and that there is none other.

So somehow the servant becomes an example to men everywhere of God’s power.  Just as Moses was to all the surrounding nations, of God’s power.  And that nothing could stand against God and his servant and his people.  “I girded you up.”  But he ungirds the loins of rulers in verse one.  So God empowers him, and he disempowers them, showing the contrast between the rulers and nations of the world, the great ones of the world, who are put down when the Lord’s servant is girded up.  It kind of puts everybody in their place.  Apart from him there is no God, there is no power.  “That men from where the sun rises to where it sets may know that without me there is nothing, that I am the Lord, and that there is none other.”  These others are not gods.  The gods of the Orient are not gods.  There is no other but the God of Israel.  That’s going to become very clear at some point, throughout the world.

45:7  I fashion light and form darkness; I occasion peace and cause calamity. I, the Lord, do all these things.

…..God doesn’t create darkness. If people choose darkness, they cannot exist in the light. And so a place has to be made for them, which is a place devoid of light. Not that God actually wants to do those things, but they are a consequence of people’s choice. And that’s part of the test, the test of loyalty in the face of that kind of opposition or adversity. Otherwise it wouldn’t be a test; otherwise it wouldn’t be real “ascent” to a higher level on the spiritual ladder. There has to be a test of some kind; a rebirth from something lesser to something greater. “I, the Lord, do all these things” and really what it is talking about there is covenant blessing and covenant curse. That’s the bottom line of the light and darkness and the peace and calamity. He wants covenant blessing for his children as in the next verse.

45:8  Rain down from above, O heavens; let the skies overflow with righteousness. Let the earth receive it and salvation blossom; let righteousness spring up forthwith. I, the Lord, create it.

 So that the blessings may pour down; fertility, plenty of food to eat, all the blessings that come in a bountiful society because of covenant keeping. “Let the skies overflow with righteousness” alludes to the servant’s mission in the last days. The servant is the one who establishes Zion. That is what is going on right here in Isaiah. Isaiah is the most “Zion-oriented” of all the prophets of God. The name “Zion” is mentioned more times in Isaiah than in any other book. Isaiah shows how Zion is formed. It is formed when the servant fulfills a mission to the Israel level people and lifts them from an Israel/Jacob level to a Zion level. Then Zion comes into being, and then the God of Israel, the King of Zion comes and dwells among them. “Rain down from above O heavens and let the skies overflow with righteousness.” Because when the people keep covenant, God pours down the blessings, and that is not just physical imagery, but it is also symbolic of that.

“Let the earth receive it and salvation blossom.” The whole purpose of God’s plan is salvation and redemption. Salvation from the lost and fallen state; from a lesser state to a higher state. We come here and we find ourselves in a lesser sphere of things. This sojourn upon the earth allows the possibility to ascend or progress—Isaiah calls it ascend; from a lower to higher level—that is salvation--salvation from something less to something greater--salvation actually from a damned state or cursed state; a state of covenant curse to a state of covenant blessing. Where even death which is a covenant curse which came through Adam’s transgression is overcome and become immortality in the millennium. Isaiah talks about that. “Let the earth receive it and salvation blossom and let righteousness spring up forthwith. I, the Lord create it, that is righteousness.” In Hebrew, create “it” or “him” referring back to righteousness; Righteousness being the name of the servant because he personifies righteousness. And salvation in Isaiah being a name or personification of the Lord God himself. We’ve already seen that—how the Lord personifies salvation. He exemplifies salvation and he is salvation. In order to partake of God’s salvation, you must come to him. He is “it”. He comes as salvation later on in Isaiah. “See your salvation comes; his reward with him, his work preceding him” 52:11. Salvation and righteousness work together. If you are righteous you will be saved. If you are not righteous you will not be saved. Righteousness is a precursor or precondition of salvation. Righteousness is also the forerunner of God’s coming who is salvation. The servant is the forerunner of his coming. These things have to spring up and then blossom. When a seed first springs up out of the earth; when the rain comes down and send the negative charge down to earth and h2o waters the soil, the seed sprouts and springs up. But it is still tender, it is still like this Jacob/Israel category who is still vacillating between idolatry and the false Gods and the true God. It is still tender, but when it grows up, eventually it will blossom, and when it blossoms that is salvation. That’s when it is a full-grown plant and flower. Some plants fall by the wayside, some dry up, some get trampled upon some get eaten by the bugs, they don’t all make it, but when they do make it, that is what it is like. Salvation is like that; we have lost some along the way, but some survived. Over them we will rejoice. ‘I, the Lord create “it” or righteousness or salvation’. Creation motif.

45:9  Woe to those in conflict with their Maker, mere shards of earthenware pottery! As though the clay were to say to him who molds it, What are you doing? Your hands have no skill for the work!

This is a chaos motif. They’re just broken shards, like clay in the hands of the potter. This is the other end of the spectrum. There are those who blossom and flower and there are those who revert back to chaos. They could have gone either way. As though the clay were to say to him who molds it, “What are you doing? Your hands have no skill for the work”. Can you imagine if there was a potter making a thing out of a lump of clay and suddenly the clay started telling him what to do? Started answering him back? Isaiah uses that motif or that idea to describe the wicked. When the servant comes along and he says “this is what God says, this is the way it should be,” and those whom he is trying to mold that way answer him back: “you don’t know what you are doing, you don’t know what you are talking about” as though the clay were to say to him who molds it, “What are you doing? Your hands have no skill for the work.” They question what the servant does or what it going on. When God acts to bring about his righteousness and salvation in the earth then there is going to be opposition. Then the Lord pronounces a woe or a curse upon them because they are in conflict with their maker; the same creator who authorizes and empowers his servant. Remember? The creator of heaven and earth? Whenever it mentions that creation, it mentions the servant. We’ll see that in the next few verses. We’ve already seen it a couple of times. The ‘hands’ are both hands; the left hand and the right hand. The servant is the right hand and he is going to deliver the people in an exodus. He’s going to pull them out and deliver them from captivity and from calamity. The left hand is the hand that is going to smite the wicked—the King of Assyria will do that. And they are saying, “No, he doesn’t know what he’s doing.” The Lord works through his ‘hands’, through his emissaries, through his agents. They are agents of redemption and destruction respectively.

45:10  Woe to those who say to their Father, What have you begotten? or to the Woman, What have you borne?

The same woe or pronunciation of the covenant curse and the paralleling of the woes, parallel the maker and the father do you see that? Top of verse nine and the top of verse 10. So, that the Father there is who? The Maker. Who then is the woman? His wife. God the Father and God the Mother, it is right there. That’s on one level; what we just said. Rhetorically, the woman is who? The woman Zion. I guess the church is Zion also; we can’t impose things in Isaiah. We can’t say that that situation is so and so. How do you know? I just think so. No, that doesn’t work. You have to stay with Isaiah’s context of things.

In Isaiah, he identifies the woman throughout as the woman Zion. The harlot Babylon is another woman, but he calls the woman, Zion. She also begets in chapter sixty-six, which is cross-referenced there, “she begets a nation there, born in the day, born in the Day of Judgment.” That is the nation that comes out on exodus. Israel is born of the exodus out of Egypt so this nation is born out of the exodus of Babylon in the latter-days. There are those who are opposed to this work. Just as they were opposed to the Jewish Zionists when they try to re-establish themselves in the Promised Land—Palestine. So there will be those who are opposed to those who are trying to establish Zion in the end time and there will be those who fight against Zion and who answer back their God. …we are the offspring of God, is that correct? It is implying that we are the offspring of God here and that those who are the offspring of God, who are being reborn, who experience a rebirth on a higher level of the spiritual ladder are getting opposition from those who are powers of chaos, those who identify with the powers of chaos.
‘The shards of earthenware pottery’ means that they are going to be broken. Those who present that opposition are going to be smashed and they will be good for nothing. Shards of earthenware pottery are good for nothing.
  
45:11  Thus says the Lord, the Holy One of Israel, their Maker: Will you ask me for signs concerning my children, or dictate to me about the deeds of my hands?

Here we have the maker again as we had in verse nine. So we have an a b a chiasm. ‘Maker’ in verse nine =a, ‘Father’ in verse ten= b, ‘Maker’ in verse eleven= a. Who is the Maker? The Father. The parallel is of the two woes already tells you that, but here is a second confirmation. “Would you ask me for signs concerning my children or dictate to me about the deeds of my hands?”

So, what is being begotten? His children are being begotten and his children are the works or the deeds of his hands. We literally are the offspring of father and mother; spiritually father and spiritually mother, as indicated here and is that particular seed of God that is meeting with opposition. Implying that there are those who are not God’s seed or his children who are being begotten. Perhaps they are the children of God, but they are not being born or reborn on a higher level; they choose not to. They choose, instead to fight that scenario. They are asking for signs about what is going on and what sign do they get? Their own destruction, eventually. They are trying to dictate to God what he should do, like the clay in the hand of the potter. Who do you suppose these people are? Well, we have already seen that the rulers of nations come under fire. We’ve already seen the wise men and the diviners. In chapter forty-one we saw dignitaries. ‘He shall come on dignitaries as on mud. Tread them as clay like a potter’—that’s the servant in 14:25. In other words, those who are in authority; the ones who are in authority are the ones who are questioning and dictating to the God of Israel what he should do. And so the Lord overturns those authorities as false authorities, or as authorities that become corrupt.
Here in chapter 40:23 it says, “by him who brings potentates to naught and makes the authorities of the world null and void.” When does he do that? Whey they start opposing him, when they start opposing the purposes of God and fighting against Zion. Then he makes short work of them.

45:12  It is I who made the earth and created man upon it; I with my hand suspended the heavens, appointing all their host.

Now, he introduces a new element. Usually he says that he made the heavens, the earth, etc. Now he says, ‘I, with my hand suspended the heavens,’ which implies that he had assistance in his creation, from his hand. The ‘hand’ in Isaiah is the Lord’s servant; called the right hand of the Lord. ‘Appointing all their hosts’-- the hosts of heavens were all named. They responded to his call, he calls them in chapter forty. This creation motif where God is creator; again, he is outlining his divine attributes as creator, but also lending that authority of himself as creator to his servant as in the next verse,

45:13  It is I who rightfully raise him up, who facilitate his every step; he will rebuild my city and set free my exiles without price or bribe, says the Lord of Hosts.

This creator-God, who made the entire earth, suspended the heavens with his hand, it is him who rightfully raises up this person; this servant, this Cyrus figure; this anointed shepherd and facilitates his every step. Wouldn’t that be great to have God facilitate your every step? That is how it was for Moses and for any being that ascends to that level of the spiritual ladder. They’ve passed all the tests of loyalty to God, under all kinds of duress, like King Hezekiah did, but only more so because these ascend to a higher level even that King Hezekiah. He will rebuild my city and set free my exiles without price or bribe says the Lord of Hosts,’ because the rule in that day will be-- money. Have you got any money? For your money you can be set free or you can be absolved of your crime, but not in this case. This will be without price and without bribe, without money. This will be pure release. The only condition, the only price you have to pay is to repent of your sins. How about that?

There, too we have the double precedence of Cyrus. The rebuilding of the city of Jerusalem and the temple at the end of chapter forty-four and the setting free of the exiles at the beginning of chapter forty-five. Those are the two things for which Cyrus set a precedent, historically. Before that, the city of Jerusalem had never been rebuilt. It never needed to be because it was still in existence. Cyrus was the first to authorize the rebuilding of the city and the temple. “And set free my exiles.” Now Moses set free Israel’s people bondage in Egypt but not the exiles; they were not exiled in Egypt. They themselves were not exiled in Egypt in the days of Jacob, Jacob and his twelve sons went down to Egypt in a time of famine and were housed in Egypt and given land and an existence there. In this case, Israel is not in bondage in just one country, Egypt, but Israel is in exile and bondage all over the world; north, south, east, and west. Historically, Cyrus set a precedent for releasing Israel’s captives from bondage in the whole world, in the ancient known world, throughout his empire, which extended to the ancient known world. Cyrus set a precedent for that and this is a summary or a restatement of those two roles of Cyrus where the two roles of Cyrus became a type. “It is I who rightfully raise him up” or raise him up in righteousness. It is also what he did for the servant, who is the same person. “He will rebuild my city and set free my exiles” w/o price or bribe says the Lord of Hosts”; meaning the Lord who has all power over the hosts of heaven and earth.

45:14  Thus says the Lord: The wealth of Egypt and merchandise of Cush shall pass on to you and become yours, as shall the Sabeans, a people tall in stature. They shall walk behind you in chains and bow down to you, entreating you, Surely God is in you; no other gods exist!

Here we see kind of a class structure forming in that day between those who become thus redeemed of God and others who become, as it were, their servants. The wealth of Egypt, the merchandise of Cush included these slaves, anciently, who served in the households of the upper-class. These people become slaves, ‘they shall walk behind your in chains and bow down to you’. These people may have constituted some kind of opposition but not being part of the Assyrian scenario. They were into idolatry because they are admitting there is only one God at the end. ‘Surely God is in you, no other Gods exist’ and so there are people who are coming to some kind of enlightenment who were in some kind of heathen condition and they become part of the wealth or merchandise, and part of the spoils, so to speak, in that day for the elect. You may ask, “Are these people going to serve as slaves in the households of the righteous or the elect, the redeemed of God?” The answer would be: not only in the sense that we are familiar with today. ‘It says they will walk behind you in chains’ and so for a time anyway they will be in that kind of condition, but its not likely that there will be any oppression involved. It is simply a consequence of their former lifestyles or things like that. They were probably taken captive because they had done something against the people of God, but not being part of the Assyrian scenario. Somehow God provides for a third category of people to be a part of the redemption of Israel without being in it or without being first parties to it, but second parties.

45:15  Truly thou art a God who dissembles himself, O Savior, God of Israel.

This is kind of a unique verse in the book of Isaiah because God does everything covertly, well not everything, but much of what he does is done covertly and how he turns the tables upon his people’s enemies and how he works behinds the scenes in history and through the instrumentality of nations, peoples, rulers and brings about fortuitous circumstances for his people and puts people in their place, as he does here, and brings about a beautiful redemption, a beautiful scenario at the commencement of the millennium. He does all of that. He really doesn’t come out in the floor and say, “Look what I did or look how great I am.” He just kind of quietly does it. Even when he personally comes to the earth he dissemble himself.

The Savior, God of Israel, is the one who appears in 53:3: “and he had no distinguished appearance that we should notice him, He had no pleasing aspect that we should find him attractive. He was despised and disdained by men, a man of grief, accustomed to suffering”. Even when he comes as Savior or Redeemer of his people to earth he dissembles himself of who he really is. That shows his meekness, his humility and those attributes of God are divine attributes that we must emulate, that we may emulate. Where we can become meek and humble as he was and become like him in that respect; that is a divine trait.

45:16  As one, the makers of inventions retired in disgrace, utterly dismayed and embarrassed.

because they did not participate in any redemption. Even though he is the Savior, the God of Israel, the only true God, the Maker of heaven and earth and everything that is in it, for them there is no redemption, what a waste! They were utterly dismayed and embarrassed because they clung to their inventions, to their idols, to the works of men’s hands. They didn’t respond to the servant’s mission who called them away from such things. ‘As one as makers of invention retired in disgrace, utter dismayed and embarrassed’

45:17  But Israel is saved by the Lord with an everlasting salvation; you shall not be dismayed or put to shame worlds without end.

Salvation is everlasting, the destruction of the wicked is temporary is just happens quickly, it is over and gone. But they live throughout the millennium and beyond. Israel is saved by the Lord with an everlasting salvation. “You shall not be dismayed or put to shame, worlds without end.” What a contrast between the two groups, all hinging on what? The test of loyalty at a very critical time in human history or at any time in human history because God is no respecter of persons; he is the same yesterday, today and forever. What happens in an end-time scenario in principle will happen at any time in human history individually. It just depends on where, for any individual, that scenario is acted out. It may be that some passed away and they will come back and participate in that redemption in the millennium as a resurrected being. Time, in that sense, is not material. The principle remains that Israel is saved with an everlasting salvation. It is not put to shame. The fact is that Israel is put to shame for a time. Isaiah says that in chapter 61:7: “Because their shame is two-fold and shouted insults were their lot. Therefore, in their lands shall their inheritance be two-fold and everlasting joy be theirs”. But Israel’s shame, that kind of shame, is only temporary. Salvation, when it comes is everlasting and there will be not more shame or dismaying after that. The test is, are you willing to be put to shame now for your testimony, for your belief, for who you are? If you are, then you can participate in this everlasting salvation. If you’re not, then maybe, right now you will not be shamed because you will be part of the establishment. When the establishment falls and is destroyed, then you will inherit an everlasting shame, you will have shame anyway and much more of it.

45:18  For thus says the Lord who created the heavens, the God who formed the earth—who made it secure and organized it, not to remain a chaotic waste, but designed it to be inhabited: I am the Lord, there is none other.

What does this alert you to when he starts talking like this? He’s going to talk about the servant. “Who made it secure and organized it not to remain a chaotic waste but designed it to be inhabited. I am the Lord, there is none other.” So the whole purpose of the earth being formed and the creation of the heavens and everything as we saw in chapter forty is to be a place of habitation for who? For anybody? Well, particularly for his covenant people, for those who could become his covenant people; and become an exalted people, saved with an everlasting salvation.

45:19  I speak not in secret from somewhere in a land of darkness; I do not ask Jacob’s offspring to seek me amid chaos. I the Lord tell righteousness and am forthright of speech.

Implying there are some who are claiming revelations from God in some secret places; places of darkness. Why would it say darkness? Darkness is a chaos motif, right? So, these are powers of chaos that are claiming that God is speaking somewhere and this is a polemic against those claims or such people. Otherwise, why mention it? ‘I speak not in secret from somewhere in a land of darkness’. Some are claiming revelations in the name of God. “I do not ask Jacob’s offspring to seek me amid chaos.” He actually uses the word ‘chaos’ right there in Hebrew. Also the land of darkness is the land of who? The King of Assyria, who personifies darkness, which could imply that the King of Assyria is claiming revelation or posing as some kind of impostor of God or claiming himself to be God or an emissary of God. We might watch out for that.

“I, the Lord tell righteousness and am forthright of speech.” When he has anything to say, who does he tell it to? His servant. His servant tells the people. ‘He is forthright of speech.’” The servant’s mission is to all nations of the world. He is the Lord’s mouthpiece, as it were to all nations and rulers in that day. He has nothing to hide, no secrets, no ouije boards, there’s no divining in dark places.

45:20  Gather yourselves and come; draw near, all you fugitives of the nations. They who carried about their wooden idols and prayed to gods that could not save them were caught unawares.

‘Caught unawares’, by what? By economic collapse, by natural calamities, by the Day of Judgment. The servant is appealing to them, or the Lord is appealing to them through his servant, his Righteousness. The fact that the Lord calls ‘Righteousness’ the servant also implies that he tells who? Anyone else who is righteousness, anyone else who personifies righteousness. As time goes on and the servant’s mission takes effect, there are many who come out of the Lord’s people who rise to a higher level and the Lord speaks to them. Why shouldn’t he? But, these other guys; these idolaters who pray to statues and carry them around are totally oblivious to what is going on.

45:21  Speak up and present your case; go ahead and consult one another. Who foretold these things of old, predicted them long ago? Did not I, the Lord, apart from whom there is no God? Did not I, the God of righteousness, except for whom there is no Savior?

This is like the United Nations again. “Who foretold these things of old; predicted them of long ago? Did not I, the Lord, apart from whom there is no God, did not I , the God of righteousness, except for whom there is no Savior.” So, again they are confronted. There are a number of them, there are committees maybe, they consult one another. Again, they can’t proclaim themselves as being legitimate because they can’t foretell what’s going to happen, they don’t know. But, God predicted it a long time ago. How? Through the things that happened then, as in the book of Isaiah, but also through the servant. The Lord predicted it, the God or ‘righteousness or the God’ of his servant of whom the servant is an emissary or the God of anybody who is righteous as people Zion are righteous. ‘Except for whom there is no Savior’, the King of Assyria, although he promises salvation, he is not going to be a Savior. The head of the New World Order, whoever that is, is not going to be a savior, Satan is not a savior. In that day there will be all these plans of salvation that are counterfeits that are going to implement this or that program for the world and they are all going to be counterfeits.

45:22  Turn to me and save yourselves, all you ends of the earth; I am God, there is none other.

When those plans for the one world government are implemented it will be a very precipitous time and that will be the time when the servant comes up on the scene and says, “Turn to me and save yourselves”. Or the Lord will say through him, “turn to him.” ‘Turn to me and save yourselves, all ye ends of the earth. I am God, there is none other.’ Implying that someone is claiming that he is God. Who is that? The antichrist, the King of Assyria. The idols are not Gods and this person, this other idol, dictator, ruler of the world, is also not God, the United Nations are not Gods.

45:23  By myself I swear it—righteousness has issued from my mouth, by a decree that cannot be revoked: To me every knee shall bow and every tongue swear allegiance.

This creator-God, this only God, authorizes his servant, called Righteousness, or the servant, who will personify righteousness, and nobody can change that. You can’t get rid of him like you do others. Pharaoh simply can’t get rid of Moses, he has not power over Moses. If Moses were put in prison, Moses would walk right through the prison doors. The same with Elijah. When that kind of power of God is manifest in the world there is nothing anyone can do to thwart it. ‘By myself I swear it. Righteousness has issued from my mouth.’ The servant is also the Lord’s ‘mouth’, and the servant teaches God’s righteousness, not self-righteousness, he teaches God’s law and word, whose observance constitutes righteousness and its by decree that cannot be revoked there is no other way. There is only one way; the straight and narrow way to God, through the covenant that he makes with his people, through covenant observance, through the mediator of that covenant, through the servant, and above the servant, through the Lord himself. In the New Testament, Jesus says, “I am the way, the truth, and the light.” He is also the keeper of the gate that employs no servant there. You can’t get around that.

“To me, he says, every knee shall bow and every tongue swear allegiance.” All other Gods are frauds, all other authorities are frauds, are counterfeits. This idea of every knee bowing and every tongue swearing allegiance is important in another sense in the fact that there is no resurrection without this. You will remember the principle that when there is a proxy for another person’s salvation, or when there is a proxy for a people’s salvation as there was in the days of King Hezekiah. The Lord delivers the people of King Hezekiah, for whose sake? For King Hezekiah sake, because Hezekiah went through this horrendous ordeal. He had a covenant relationship with the God of Israel, the people did not. The people were loyal to their king. They kept the king’s law, the king kept God’s law, then there was protection. As so it is with deliverance from death. Because salvation is a proxy arrangement, because God himself pays the price for our sins and forgives us when we repent, the law of mercy can come into operation. When he is delivered from death by resurrection, then so may we be delivered from death by resurrection because he is our proxy; he is our Hezekiah. We cannot participate in that resurrection if we don’t give him our allegiance. So, that even the sinners; even the people of Hezekiah who were sinners. participated in the deliverance from the Assyrians because of Hezekiah’s righteousness. Hezekiah answered to God for their disloyalties to Him; that’s why he paid such a price of suffering. So, even sinners can participate in resurrection from the dead when they give their allegiance to Christ, as manifested by the bowing of the knee and tongue swearing allegiance. They may still be sinners, but if they acknowledge Christ they will be resurrected. The born again believers of the evangelical faiths are right in the sense that there is deliverance from death for them. They are saved. They can participate in his resurrection.

45:24  It shall be said of me, By the Lord alone come vindication and might. Before him must come in shame all who were incensed against him.

There were many who were incensed against him, dictating to him and to the servant. They were trying to. Posing opposition. In the end when all is said and done all the confrontations have been made, and the power of God has been manifested, what is the final result? The wicked are put down and the righteous are delivered. Just like those people bowed down in chains saying ‘surely God is in you, no other Gods exist.’ They have to admit that he alone is God. By the Lord alone comes vindication and might. Vindication in Hebrew is the same word as righteousness. So by the Lord alone comes righteousness and might. If you are righteousness, he will vindicate you. He vindicates his servant, he vindicates all who come to him who manifest righteousness or, in other words, who keep his law and word, the law and word of the covenant. He empowers them; ‘by the Lord alone come vindication and might.’ Pharaoh had to admit that, King Nebuchadnezzar had to admit that, the King of Assyria has to admit that, all who fight against Zion will. ‘Before him must come a shame;’ an everlasting shame because they all go to damnation. ‘All who incensed against him.’

45:25  In the Lord shall all Israel’s offspring justify themselves and have cause to boast.

The one group goes to humiliation; the other to exaltation and their exaltation is God’s exaltation. They justify themselves in Him because they really had no claim on their own; they were just sinners who repented. When they did so, He delivered them, spiritually, physically, so he is their boast. They, and all their offspring will praise him for what he has done for them.