- In the first year of King Cyrus of Persia, the words
of the Lord spoken by Jeremiah came true. The Lord worked in the spirit of
King Cyrus of Persia so that he made it known through all his nation, and
also put it in writing, saying, “This is what Cyrus king of Persia says:
'The Lord, the God of heaven, has given me all the nations of the earth.
He has chosen me to build Him a house in Jerusalem, which is in Judah.
Whoever there is among you of all His people, may his God be with him! Let
him go up to Jerusalem which is in Judah, and build again the house of the
Lord, the God of Israel. He is the God Who is in Jerusalem.’” (Ezra
1:1-3 NLT).
- I’m not sure what brought the Berlin Wall to mind
today. Perhaps it’s all the “Year in Pictures” that I have been seeing
advertised. Certainly, some of the most dramatic images of the last half of
the 20th Century involve that wall. There are pictures of the barbed wire along the top of the
wall, the armed guards, the people who risked everything to escape from
behind the wall, and the people who died trying. I’m not sure anyone
really believed it could ever come down. But go to Berlin today, the wall is
gone. And it came down almost overnight. The wall we thought would always be
there is gone. In fact, I have seen a piece of it on display at the George
Bush Library in College Station, Texas!
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- Perhaps there's a wall in your life that looks like
it's always going to be there. It's hard to imagine how it would ever come
down. But God doesn't know anything about unmovable walls. He's been tearing
them down for a long, long time! In our reading this morning the Jewish
people had been in captivity in another land for 70 years, living under the
rule of the pagan King Cyrus. It was hard to imagine how they would ever get
back home. But God had other ideas! This was about as likely humanly as the
Berlin Wall coming down, but God moved the heart of the most powerful man on
earth. And the wall between Persia and Israel came crashing down.
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- This kind of miracle is reported all through scripture.
God changed the hard heart of Pharaoh to let the Jews - his major labor
force - just walk out of Egypt. Who would have figured? When Saul didn't
want to be Israel's first king, the Bible says, "God changed Saul's
heart." When God wanted Peter to take the Gospel to a Gentile military
commander, Peter's strong Jewishness and his lifetime dislike of Gentiles
was a major wall of prejudice. But with one vision, God tore down that wall,
and Peter went willingly into Gentile territory for Jesus. When Saul of
Tarsus was determined to stamp out Christianity before it spread, God
changed the heart of the persecutor into the heart of a disciple of Jesus in
a moment.
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- Walls. Impossible walls. Things that look like they
will never change. God specializes in these kinds of things. Perhaps you
should call on the Lord for a wall in your life to come down. Whether it's a
wall in a relationship, a person who seems like they will never come to
Christ, maybe a son or daughter who looks like they will never leave their
prodigal ways, people who are standing in the way of something God wants, or
another wall that stands in the way of the will and the working of God. No
matter how high the wall, no matter how long it's been there, it is not
unmovable. If God wants it gone and if you'll believe Him for it, that wall
is coming down!
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