A New Beginning - ANB Week 1, Day 1

Monday, Mar 4                                                                 A New Beginning

Ezra 1.1-4

The Jews had been exiled to Babylon. Their fathers had sinned against the God Most High. This God, their covenant God known to them as YHWH, had allowed foreign invaders to take them captive into a land which was not their own. Bur, God had long before sanctioned their glorious return to Jerusalem on the lips of the prophet Jeremiah around 608 B.C. Now, Cyrus the King of Persia fulfills that prophecy to give Israel a new beginning in the year 538 B.C.

The appeal of Cyrus is to the LORD, the God of heaven and he credits this God with all of his success as a ruler. But it is this God who has given him a directive, “Rebuild my house in Jerusalem.” Cyrus was not a Jew, so why should he revere the word of this God of Israel? Another prophet from many years before even Jeremiah gives us the reason why Cyrus heeded the words of God. Isaiah, who was the prophet to Judah from 745-710 B.C., tells us about a king named Cyrus who was to be God’s instrument: “‘I have raised Cyrus up in righteousness, and I will direct all his ways; he shall build my city and let my exiles go free, not for price or reward,’ says the LORD of hosts” (Is. 45.13, NKJV). God had already planned out the new beginning, down to the detail of who would be involved and who would finance his master plan.

We should not be surprised to find out that God had given details of his glorious new beginning for Israel in other passages of Scripture or in other historical writers. Josephus, a Jewish historian around the turn of the first century AD, recorded that in reading the Hebrew prophets, Cyrus became so impressed that the God of the Jews named him by name (Is. 44.28) in prophecies from 200 years before his own life that he could not do anything buy act upon what this God had said he was to do. Is that not simply AMAZING? Jeremiah gives us the exact time that all of this would happen. We all know the verse Jeremiah 29.11, but do we know that the prophecies of Israel’s new beginning are in its focus? Verse 29.10 says, “For thus says the LORD, ‘When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will visit you, and I will fulfill to you my promise, and bring you back to this place’” (ESV). God had already made the plans to prosper His people, Israel. And God had already orchestrated the events that would place Cyrus, His chosen instrument, in command of Persia seventy years later to fulfill His purpose and plan.

Cyrus was king for a reason. God had him in a position of power for His purpose: to give Israel a new beginning. Do not make the mistake of thinking that you are at Hopewell for any reason at this point in history other than to fulfill God’s purpose and plan. We are at the point of making a new beginning for ourselves. This is not to say that we are currently under exile from God, but it is to say that we are looking toward the purpose God has for this church at this time in this community. Cyrus was not ruler in Persia by mere circumstance, but because God had directed his paths to make him usable for God’s purposes. Now, you say, I am no ruler or great power. You do not have to be. All that is required of you is a mindset as Cyrus had and to say, “All that my God says I am to do, I will do.” Please join with us during this month in praying for God’s vision for Hopewell and ask yourself, “What can I do?”

Prayer:

Lord, please give me the ability to do Your work and to submit myself to being Your instrument.