For those who want a change from the Gospel

Trinity 20 – Isaiah 45:1-7 (Related)

Many years ago now I made a big mistake. I remember it well because it happens so rarely! I was speaking at an event, and for my sins I was doing a young people’s slot, aimed at teenagers. In those days I was desperately trendy, so I decided to base my talk around several current songs, which nowadays would be classed as Ibiza Classics, but which then were all the rage. As I was doing what I thought was a rather good talk on discipleship, service and our heavenly reward, through the medium of Dance music, I could feel the atmosphere in the room chilling. The response I got at the end made it all clear. Just before this, the youth leader had made all the kids chuck away all their secular CDs (remember them?) because only Christian worship music was acceptable for Christians, the rest apparently being satanic. And now I had come in and used Fatboy Slim, ATB, Alice DJ and the rest to encourage them in their discipleship. Of course I apologised profusely. However naïve and stupid I thought this point of view to be, I would never use a speaking gig deliberately to undermine a particular church’s teaching. But the storm I created raged on for some while.

Isaiah, I believe, would have agreed with me, and this passage explains why I believe that. In the second part of the book which bears his name, the prophet has turned up out of the blue to announce to the exiles in Babylon that God had come to comfort them, that their sins had been paid for, and their captivity was about to come to and end. But how exactly was this going to happen? The prophet explains in chapter 45. He is going to use Cyrus, the pagan king of Persia, to attack and conquer Babylon, and then Cyrus is going to allow the captive Jews to return home. This is exactly what happened. The underlying message to this great news is that God can use anyone, even those who do not know or acknowledge him, to work out his purposes. Verses 1-2 explain that God is going to lead this conquering king by the hand, that he will remove anything which stands in his way, and help him in the defeat and looting of Babylon. For the sake of his people, God will allow Cyrus great honour and wealth, even though he does not acknowledge God. but the most incredible thing is the term used in v.1, where God calls Cyrus his ‘anointed’, the English translation of the Hebrew from which we get the term ‘Messiah’. God is going to use this pagan king in a way similar to the way in which he would later use Jesus, to set his people free. So it appears that God is able to use people who do not acknowledge or even know him for his purposes.

But we all know that, don’t we? Only recently I had one of the most profound spiritual experiences of my life, triggered by a random Peter Gabriel track which happened to pop up while I was listening to music and working on my computer. In fact, there are times when I find myself drawn into profound worship through the art and music of people who as far as I know have no Christian faith at all. Far more so, in fact, than I do through the genre of ‘contemporary Christian music’, which largely bores me to tears. To close our ears to ‘secular’ music is an unnecessary policy when God speaks so clearly through anyone whom he chooses to use.

But there’s another motif in this passage, which is perhaps the most important message of all. It is captured in the repeated phrase ‘so you may know …’ God uses the lives of those who have no interest in him or knowledge of him so that we may know. What do we know? That there is nothing or no-one, no situation or event, which is outside or beyond his control. Elsewhere in the OT God is seen as the one who directs the nations, moves them around for his purposes, brings them victory or defeat according to his will. That’s how big our God is. If he can use the might of the Persian Empire and its ruler like that, for the blessing of his people, I’m pretty sure that on a good day he might be able to use Fatboy Slim.