In Isaiah, chapter forty-one, verse twenty-five, “I have raised up one from the north, and he shall come: from the rising of the sun shall he call upon my name: and he shall come upon princes as upon morter, and as the potter treadeth clay.” This phrase describes Cyrus, the man who was the king of Persia, the one who freed the people of God from Babylonian exile. Although he was called righteous, not because he himself was righteous, but because he would carry out God’s righteous plan of redemption upon the earth.
North is the direction from which invasions into the country of God usually came, as in Jeremiah one, verse fourteen, Jeremiah six, verse twenty-two, Jeremiah twenty-five, verse nine, Jeremiah forty-six, verse twenty, Jeremiah forty-seven, verse two, Jeremiah fifty, verse three, respectively. Although Cyrus was not a worshiper of the Lord, he did use the name of the Lord in his decree to allow the exiles to return to the promised land, as in Ezra one, verse two.
There needs nothing more to show the folly of sin than to bring to notice the reasons given in defence of it. There is nothing in idols worthy of regard. They are less than nothing, and worse than nothing. Let the advocates of other doctrines than that of salvation through Christ, bring their arguments. Can they tell of a cure for human depravity? In the work of redemption, the Lord showed much more than in the release of His people from Babylon. The good tidings the Lord will send in the gospel are a mystery hid from ages and generations. A Deliverer is raised before us, of nobler name and greater power than the deliverer of the captive people. May we be numbered among his obedient servants and faithful friends.