From the Bible teaching of Pastor Chuck Smith:
“One of the greatest apologetics that the Bible is indeed the word of God is the internal evidences of inspiration and this is one of them where the Lord, through the prophet, spoke of the events of the future with interesting details. In this case, even naming individuals, naming Cyrus and then bragging about the fact that, “I have named you and you don’t even know me”. “For Israel mine elect, I have even called thee by thy name: I have surnamed thee, though thou hast not known me” (Isaiah 44:4). God is talking about the guy before he is even born saying, look I’ve named you, I’m the one that gave you your name.
God knows a lot more about you than you imagine that he does. You are of interest to God. Jesus spoke about how that “there is not a sparrow that falls to the ground but what your Father is not aware of it”. If your Father is aware of sparrows, how much more is he aware of you his child?
Here in chapter forty-five, “Thus saith the Lord to his anointed, to Cyrus,” (Isaiah 45:1). First he calls him his shepherd, now he calls him his anointed. “whose right hand I have held, to subdue the nations before him;” (Isaiah 45:1). I have been his strength, I am the one that helped him to subdue the nation. “I will loose the loins of kings,” (Isaiah 45:1).
As you read the book of Daniel, at the time of the fall of Babylon, the night that Babylon fell and Belshazzar was having that great party and drunken brawl in the palace. He ordered the vessels that his grandfather Nebuchadnezzar had taken out of the temple of Jerusalem to be brought into this banqueting house that they might drink their wine out of these sanctified vessels of the temple. As they were drinking the wine and praising the gods of gold and silver, suddenly there came over, on the wall, a hand that was writing on the plaster words that he did not understand but he was terrified. The Bible says that, “the joints of his loins were loosed and his knee smote one against another”. His knees began to shake because he was so terrified. Notice the joints of his loins were loosed. God said concerning Cyrus, “I will loose the loins of kings,” fulfilled a hundred and seventy years later. The Lord also said, “I will open before him the two leaved gates; and the gates shall not be shut; (Isaiah 45:1).
Within the city of Babylon, the river Euphrates divided the city of Babylon. The Persian troops diverted the flow of the Euphrates so that those who were beseeching the city when the water of the river receded, they were able to come in on the river bank inside the city’s huge walls of three hundred feet high and eighty seven feet across the top. They were able to come in under these walls on the banks of the river Euphrates. However, within the city of Babylon, there were also walls lining the river Euphrates who had these large gates that would be shut at night and locked. According to the historian Herodotus, this particular night when Cyrus made his invasion, those gates were left open. As the Lord said a hundred and seventy years earlier, “I will open to you the two leaved gates”. Those were the gates in the center of the city that led directly into the palace. “The gates shall not be shut:” (Isaiah 45:1). Isaiah could not know that except by divine inspiration.”
From Pastor Chuck Smith teaching through the Book of Ezra
