When God sets out to fulfill His promises it’s exciting to watch. To get a glimpse into an example of this let’s turn to the Old Testament book of Ezra.
This is how the book of 1st Chronicles ends and how Ezra begins: “In the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, in order to fulfill 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 to put it in writing.” The proclamation was to free exiles to go back to Jerusalem and rebuild their temple.
To get background for this you need to go to the book of Jeremiah. Actually, Jeremiah predicted when this would happen in Jeremiah 25:11-12 and 29:10-14. Isaiah predicted a few hundred years earlier in Isaiah 44:28 whom God chose to make this happen. It is clear if you read Isaiah 45 Cyrus was not seeking after God. God was in control, orchestrating it all, moving in the heart of Cyrus to do His bidding. Later in Ezra chapter 1 it says that in response to Cyrus’s proclamation “everyone whose heart God had moved – prepared to go and build the house of the Lord in Jerusalem” (v. 5).
This Impact Thought crystallized in my mind as I reflected on this chapter: When God sets out to fulfill His promises He is always on time and uses anyone He chooses to do His bidding – king, prophet, priest or commoner, believers or unbelievers.
No wonder Paul affirmed in 2nd Timothy 2:13, “If we are faithless, he will remain faithful, for he cannot disown himself” or as the KJV puts it, “He cannot deny himself.” Trust Him to keep His promises!
