Isa 45:1-7 I Make Peace and Create Evil: I The Lord Do All These Things

Isa 45:1 Thus saith the LORD to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have holden, to subdue nations before him; and I will loose the loins of kings, to open before him the two leaved gates; and the gates shall not be shut;
Isa 45:2 I will go before thee, and make the crooked places straight: I will break in pieces the gates of brass, and cut in sunder the bars of iron:
Isa 45:3 And I will give thee the treasures of darkness, and hidden riches of secret places, that thou mayest know that I, the LORD, which call thee by thy name, am the God of Israel.
Isa 45:4 For Jacob my servant’s sake, and Israel mine elect, I have even called thee by thy name: I have surnamed thee, though thou hast not known me.
Isa 45:5 I am the LORD, and there is none else, there is no God beside me: I girded thee, though thou hast not known me:
Isa 45:6 That they may know from the rising of the sun, and from the west, that there is none beside me. I am the LORD, and there is none else.
Isa 45:7 I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things.

Let’s recall that in our last study the Lord informed us He uses evil men, including Cyrus, as a type of our own beast to lead us out of Babylon.

Here are a few verses of our last study:

Isa 44:24 Thus saith the LORD, thy redeemer, and he that formed thee from the womb, I am the LORD that maketh all things; that stretcheth forth the heavens alone; that spreadeth abroad the earth by myself;

Isa 44:27 That saith to the deep, Be dry, and I will dry up thy rivers:
Isa 44:28 That saith of Cyrus, He is my shepherd, and shall perform all my pleasure: even saying to Jerusalem, Thou shalt be built; and to the temple, Thy foundation shall be laid.

This principle of using our carnal-minded flesh, our old man, typified in this case by King Cyrus, to do the Lord’s work and to perform His purpose, is revealed back in the book of Genesis where the Lord instructs Abraham:

Gen 12:1 Now the LORD had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house, unto a land that I will shew thee:
Gen 12:2 And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing:

But what happened when the Lord told Abram to get out from his father’s house? Under what circumstances did Abram leave Ur of the Chaldees? Let’s look at how the Lord arranged for Abram to “leave [his] Father’s house”. If we can see how the Lord went about leading Abram out of his father’s house, then we will learn how He also makes us to go out of the house of “[our] father the devil” and how the Lord goes about making us to go to “[the] land [which the Lord] shows [us]”. This is how the Lord works with all of us:

Gen 11:31  And Terah took Abram his son, and Lot the son of Haran his son’s son, and Sarai his daughter in law, his son Abram’s wife; and they went forth with them from Ur of the Chaldees, to go into the land of Canaan; and they came unto Haran, and dwelt there.

Instead of getting out of his country and from his father’s house, Terah, Abraham’s father, typifying Abraham’s own flesh, “took Abram his son… and they went forth… from Ur of the Chaldees, to go into the land of Caanaan”.

It is thus with all of us. Our self-righteous old man wants to go into the promised land, but he simply cannot do so, and he stops in Haran only part of the way to his goal because Terah, as does both Nebuchadnezzar and Cyrus, typifies our old man. Terah and Lot are still worshiping idols typifying our old man who wants to please the Lord, but he simply is not given to give up all of his idols and sacrifice everything to do all the Lord tells him to do if he wants to get to the promised land. 

Yet it is the Lord Himself who raises up our old man and uses him to fulfill His purpose in our lives, even to the extent of making this statement:

Isa 45:1 Thus saith the LORD to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have holden, to subdue nations before him; and I will loose the loins of kings, to open before him the two leaved gates; and the gates shall not be shut; 
Isa 45:2 I will go before thee, and make the crooked places straight: I will break in pieces the gates of brass, and cut in sunder the bars of iron: 

It is the Lord Himself who has determined that nothing will stand in the way of our old man and his self-righteous ambitions in his service to the Lord. This is how this fact is expressed in the book of Revelation:

Rev 13:4 And they worshipped the dragon which gave power unto the beast: and they worshipped the beast, saying, Who is like unto the beast? who is able to make war with him?

“I will loose the loins of kings, to subdue nations before him” is very graphic language which the Lord uses to declare to us His sovereignty over all things, including the ascendancy of our flesh and our self-righteous beast when it is his time and his day.

“Loose the loins of kings” is a phrase which is found only one other time in scripture, and it tells us of how this prophecy was literally fulfilled when Belshazzar, the king of Babylon, the grandson of Nebuchadnezzar, was so scared that he wet his “britches” when he saw a hand that was writing something on the wall of his palace. That very same night Cyrus conquered Babylon and put Belshazzar to death:

Dan 5:1 BELSHAZZAR the king made a great feast to a thousand of his lords, and drank wine before the thousand. 
Dan 5:2 Belshazzar, whiles he tasted the wine, commanded to bring the golden and silver vessels which his father Nebuchadnezzar had taken out of the temple which was in Jerusalem; that the king, and his princes, his wives, and his concubines, might drink therein. 
Dan 5:3 Then they brought the golden vessels that were taken out of the temple of the house of God which was at Jerusalem; and the king, and his princes, his wives, and his concubines, drank in them.
Dan 5:4 They drank wine, and praised the gods of gold, and of silver, of brass, of iron, of wood, and of stone.
Dan 5:5 In the same hour came forth fingers of a man’s hand, and wrote over against the candlestick upon the plaister of the wall of the king’s palace: and the king saw the part of the hand that wrote.
Dan 5:6 Then the king’s countenance was changed, and his thoughts troubled him, so that the joints of his loins were loosed, and his knees smote one against another.

Cyrus is also a pagan idol-worshiping king, and as such he is just another type of our old man who wants to do good and to be worshipped by men as a great man of God. In that capacity Cyrus, acknowledged that the Lord had foretold the ascendancy of his kingdom, naming him by name many years before he was born, and he was used of the Lord to facilitate the rebuilding of the Lord’s temple in Jerusalem. However, according to the historian Xenophon, Cyrus, like Abram’s father, Terah, both types of our carnal-minded “old man”, remained an idol worshipper until the day of his death. 

This is an excerpt from Gill’s Commentary on this 4^th verse of Isaiah 45:

“though thou hast not known me; as yet not being born; and when he was, and was grown up, he was ignorant of the true God; and though, upon sight of the above prophecy, and under an immediate influence and impression, he acknowledged the God of Israel to be the God of heaven yet it does not appear that he left the Pagan idolatry; for Xenophon (k) relates, that when he found his end was near, he took sacrifices, and offered them to Jupiter, and the sun, and the rest of the gods; and gave them thanks for the care they had taken of him; and prayed them to grant happiness to his wife, children, friends, and country.

(k) Cyropaedia, l. 8. c. 45.” (End Quote)

We are specifically told that Cyrus did not know the Lord:

Isa 45:4 For Jacob my servant’s sake, and Israel mine elect, I have even called thee by thy name: I have surnamed thee, though thou hast not known me.

“For Jacob my servant’s sake… I have called you by your name” is just another way of making this point:

Rom 8:28 And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.

2Co 4:15 For all things are for your sakes, that the abundant grace might through the thanksgiving of many redound to the glory of God.

The phrase “though you have not known Me” emphasizes the fact Cyrus was not anointed of the Lord for his own benefit. He was anointed by God for the benefit of the Lord’s people, just as King Saul was anointed of the Lord as a type of the Lord’s rejected anointed, a type of the great harlot.

Our self-righteous old man cannot know the Lord and cannot inherit the kingdom of God. Yet we are dragged to the Lord by our old man… “when [we are] yet in [our] sins”:

Eph 2:1 AND you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins;
Eph 2:2 Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience: 
Eph 2:3 Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others.
Eph 2:4 But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us,
Eph 2:5 Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;)

All who have ever known the Lord can look back over their lives and witness to this Truth. The only way any of us come to know the Lord is through first experiencing the growth and exaltation of our self-righteous old man, followed by the gradual humiliation, and then the excruciating crushing and day by day destruction, of that same self-righteousness old man. That is the judging of our old man which is the “one event” which comes to all, and that is how the Lord brings us all to Himself. That is the ‘death’ which is common to us all:

Ecc 9:2  All things come alike to all: there is one event to the righteous, and to the wicked; to the good and to the clean, and to the unclean; to him that sacrificeth, and to him that sacrificeth not: as is the good, so is the sinner; and he that sweareth, as he that feareth an oath.

But our old man must begin to die before Christ can begin to grow within us:

Joh 3:30 He must increase, but I must decrease.

Joh 12:24 Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.

Both the ‘falling into the ground’ and the ‘dying’ are in the aorist tense, meaning they continue until we draw our last physical breath. Both the phrases ‘I say unto you’ and ‘brings forth much fruit’ are in the present tense, meaning we are to be doing that at this very moment.

Cyrus, as a type of our old man, cannot inherit the kingdom of God, and is the ‘corn of wheat’ which must begin ‘dying’ before any fruit can be produced within us:

1Co 15:50 Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption.

So it is with our “old man” who does “many wonderful works” but who also credits himself with all those “many wonderful works”. Job did “many wonderful works” (Job 29), and he, too, gave credit for all he did to himself and to his own strength, his “own integrity [and his] righteousness” (Job 27:5-6), and did not give the credit to the only sovereign God.

This is what the Lord says to our old man when he does that:

Mat 7:22 Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works?
Mat 7:23 And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.

Paul discusses this inability of the flesh to submit to the Lord in these words:

Rom 7:15 For that which I do I allow not: for what I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that do I.

Rom 7:17 Now then it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. 
Rom 7:18 For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not.
Rom 7:19 For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do.
Rom 7:20 Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. 
Rom 7:21 I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me. 
Rom 7:22 For I delight in the law of God after the inward man: 
Rom 7:23 But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.
Rom 7:24 O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?

Our own self-righteous ‘Job’ sees none of those verses. Our parents did not eat of the tree of ‘the knowledge of evil’. They ate of “the tree of the knowledge of good and evil”, and they and we want to do good, but via “the law of sin in [our] members” placed there by the Lord Himself, making the vessel of clay first “marred in the Potter’s hand” (Jer 18:4), through that “law of sin in [our] members” the Lord Himself “made Adam and Eve and each of us to “err from His ways”:

Isa 63:17 O LORD, why hast thou made us to err from thy ways, and hardened our heart from thy fear? Return for thy servants’ sake, the tribes of thine inheritance.

It is so with our own flesh, typified in this case by Cyrus, which wants to do good, and who, like Terah, helps us to leave Babylon and facilitates our own return to build the temple of the Lord. In doing so our flesh is “anointed” as was King Saul, to do that part of the Lord’s service in dragging us to Himself. Again, our own flesh serves the Lord and is so recognized by the Lord as “His anointed”:

Isa 45:1 Thus saith the LORD to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have holden, to subdue nations before him; and I will loose the loins of kings, to open before him the two leaved gates; and the gates shall not be shut;
Isa 45:2 I will go before thee, and make the crooked places straight: I will break in pieces the gates of brass, and cut in sunder the bars of iron:
Isa 45:3 And I will give thee the treasures of darkness, and hidden riches of secret places, that thou mayest know that I, the LORD, which call thee by thy name, am the God of Israel.

This all sounds so literal and physical and positive, and that is exactly how the commentaries all take it. But “the treasures of darkness, and hidden riches of secret places” are not the “hidden wisdom” spoken of by Paul:

1Co 2:6 Howbeit we speak wisdom among them that are perfect: yet not the wisdom of this world, nor of the princes of this world, that come to nought:
1Co 2:7 But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the world unto our glory:

Neither is it the parables nor the proverbs of these verses:

Psa 78:2 I will open my mouth in a parable: I will utter dark sayings of old:

Pro 1:6 To understand a proverb, and the interpretation; the words of the wise, and their dark sayings.

“The treasures of darkness, and hidden riches of secret places” given to our old man have the negative spiritual application of answering us according to the idols of our own heart (Eze 14:1-9) which we just recently experienced when we were all told over and over again that there were many “dark sayings yet to be revealed”, which ‘dark sayings’ but a couple of months later were revealed to be the false doctrine that the first resurrection and the thousand year reign of the Lord’s elect over the kingdoms of this world were never meant to be taken literally and will never in fact ever take place outwardly.

Here is Strong’s definition of this Hebrew word translated as ‘darkness’:

H2822
חֹשֶׁךְ
chôshek
kho-shek’
From H2821; the dark; hence (literally) darkness; figuratively misery, destruction, death, ignorance, sorrow, wickedness: – dark (-ness), night, obscurity.

In other words, Hymeneaus and Philetus were also given “the treasures of darkness” when it was ‘revealed’ to them that “the resurrection is past already”:

2Ti 2:16 But shun profane and vain babblings: for they will increase unto more ungodliness.
2Ti 2:17 And their word will eat as doth a canker: of whom is Hymenæus and Philetus; 
2Ti 2:18 Who concerning the truth have erred, saying that the resurrection is past already; and overthrow the faith of some.

The title of this study is taken from verse seven:

Isa 45:7 I [the Lord] form the light, and create darkness: I [the Lord] make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things.

All these verses we are covering today are speaking to us as our own ‘King Cyrus’, our own beast, who has no right to eat at our altar nor to drink of the vessels we drink of:

Heb 13:10 We have an altar, whereof they have no right to eat which serve the tabernacle.

Verse 7 is being addressed to us while we are yet carnal (1Co 3:1-4) but wanting to do good” (Rom 7:17-20). Verse three is addressed to us at that same stage of our walk:

Isa 45:3 And I will give thee the treasures of darkness, and hidden riches of secret places, that thou mayest know that I, the LORD, which call thee by thy name, am the God of Israel.

Cyrus, as a type of us, never knew the Lord. All the Lord did with Cyrus was for the sake of His people, Israel. Therefore, he has no right to eat at our altar, and “the treasures of darkness, and hidden riches of secret places,” typify idols of our heart which keep us believing we are the Lord’s elect when in reality we are the Lord’s rejected anointed.

Eze 14:9 And if the prophet be deceived when he hath spoken a thing, I the LORD have deceived that prophet, and I will stretch out my hand upon him, and will destroy him from the midst of my people Israel.

What the Lord is doing in all these verses is “answering [Cyrus] according to the idol of his heart”. Cyrus is a very proud pagan king who remains a pagan and yet feels that he is also a servant of our Lord. That is exactly what the Lord does with all of us when we “believe a lie and are damned” (2Th 2:11). He makes us believe we are serving Him when, in reality, we are just a beast claiming to be God. No man with his own strength can make war with the beast. It is “the pride of life” which snares all of us and makes us believe that we of ourselves are special to the Lord, without even being connected to Him or to His doctrines.

2Th 2:9 Even him, whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders,
2Th 2:10 And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved.
2Th 2:11 And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie:

1Jn 2:16 For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world.
1Jn 2:17 And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever.

The Lord uses our flesh to lead us into captivity in ‘Ur of the Chaldees’ and in ‘Babylon of the Chaldees’. This is what we are told of Nebuchadnezzar the Chaldean king who was ‘the Lord’s servant’ to bring us into Babylonian captivity:

Jer 27:6 And now have I given all these lands [each of us] into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, my servant; and the beasts of the field have I given him also to serve him.

Knowing now that the Lord uses darkness, evil and death to bring forth light and much good fruit and life, we can now understand why we are told that we must “keep” these verses of the revelation of Jesus Christ within us (Rev 1:3):

Rev 13:4 And they worshipped the dragon which gave power unto the beast: and they worshipped the beast, saying, Who is like unto the beast? who is able to make war with him?

Rev 15:8 And the temple was filled with smoke from the glory of God, and from his power; and no man was able to enter into the temple, till the seven plagues of the seven angels were fulfilled.

This all now makes these words in Revelation 14 much clearer and more understandable:

Rev 14:6 And I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people,
Rev 14:7 Saying with a loud voice, Fear God, and give glory to him; for the hour of his judgment is come: and worship him that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters.
Rev 14:8 And there followed another angel, saying, Babylon is fallen, is fallen, that great city, because she made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication.
Rev 14:9 And the third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice, If any man worship the beast and his image, and receive his mark in his forehead, or in his hand,
Rev 14:10 The same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb:
Rev 14:11 And the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever: and they have no rest day nor night, who worship the beast and his image, and whosoever receiveth the mark of his name.
Rev 14:12 Here is the patience of the saints: here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus.

Verses 6-11 are “the patience of the saints… they that keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus”.

It is the Lord Himself who has sent Nebuchadnezzar within us to carry us away into Babylonian captivity, and it is the Lord Himself who made Cyrus, like Terah, Abraham’s father, to deliver us from our Babylonian captivity; both men being types of our own flesh unknowingly working and dying and being destroyed. It is all being done in the Lord’s service.

Rom 11:36 For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things: to whom be glory for ever. Amen.

Let’s summarize just how much of the book of Revelation is revealed in the book of Genesis. As we have already noted:

Gen 12:1 Now the LORD had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house, unto a land that I will shew thee:
Gen 12:2 And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing:
Gen 12:3 And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.

This is chapter 12 of Genesis. Abraham, whose name is still ‘Abram’, is only half-way to the promised land of Canaan. Instead of “getting out of his country, and from his kindred, and from his father’s house, unto the land [the Lord] would show [him]”, the way it actually worked was Abram’s father, his own flesh, wanting to do good but unable to do so; still worshipping idols, carried Abram half-way to the promised land, but then he stops and for many years he sets up house in Haran, while still in “his country”. As a type of us he stays there in Haran until Terah dies.

Gen 11:31 And Terah took Abram his son, and Lot the son of Haran his son’s son, and Sarai his daughter in law, his son Abram’s wife; and they went forth with them from Ur of the Chaldees, to go into the land of Canaan; and they came unto Haran, and dwelt there.
Gen 11:32 And the days of Terah were two hundred and five years: and Terah died in Haran.

What happens when our old man begins to die and the Lord finally, in type, gives us dominion over sin in our lives? This is what happens in that blessed day when our old man finally begins to die, and we are finally given dominion over him:

Gen 12:5 And Abram took Sarai his wife, and Lot his brother’s son, and all their substance that they had gathered, and the souls that they had gotten in Haran; and they went forth to go into the land of Canaan; and into the land of Canaan they came.

Rom 6:14 For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace.

When the appointed day comes for sin to no longer have dominion in our lives, we “go forth to go into the land of Canaan; and into the land of Canaan [we] come”.

Those who have lived those words know what they mean. The day comes when you realize, “I am no longer a slave to my beast. Christ lives in me and I can do all things through Him!”

Php 4:13 I [the new man in me] can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.

In type and shadow, Abram was “coming out of [Babylon” (Rev 18:4). Terah is dead and he was no longer under the dominion of his flesh, his old man. The scriptures do not at all say that Abram no longer struggles against his flesh. Quite the contrary. The very next verse in this narrative is:

Gen 12:6 And Abram passed through the land unto the place of Sichem, unto the plain of Moreh. And the Canaanite was then in the land.

This is how Paul is given to describe this part of our walk:

Rom 6:22 But now being made free from sin, and become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life.

It is imperative we understand that coming out of Babylon is not “the redemption of the purchased possession”. The redemption of the purchased possession is the resurrection from the dead for which we yet hope, and that cannot take place while we are yet in these vessels of clay.

Rom 8:21 Because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.
Rom 8:22 For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now.
Rom 8:23 And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit [our new man], even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption,
Rom 8:24 For we are saved by hope: but hope that is seen is not hope: for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for?
Rom 8:25 But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it.

As carnal vessels of clay, we are proud idol worshippers like Terah, like Nebuchadnezzar and like King Cyrus. Our old man is used by the Lord to bring us to be exalted so the Lord can cut us down and exalt Himself within us:

Isa 2:11 The lofty looks of man shall be humbled, and the haughtiness of men shall be bowed down, and the LORD alone shall be exalted in that day.

Isa 2:17 And the loftiness of man shall be bowed down, and the haughtiness of men shall be made low: and the LORD alone shall be exalted in that day.

Again, our “wicked” man is not made for himself. He is made for the Lord’s purposes (Pro 16:4). Our old man is not ‘made to err’ from the Lord’s ways just for himself. He does so to give the Lord the occasion He is seeking to destroy our old man.

Jdg 14:4  But his father and his mother knew not that it was of the LORD , that he sought an occasion against the Philistines: for at that time the Philistines had dominion over Israel.

The same is true for King Cyrus. He is anointed of the Lord to further the Lord’s work in His people, His family, His temple and His body. In the end our old man will be made to acknowledge:

Isa 45:5 I am the LORD, and there is none else, there is no God beside me: I girded thee, though thou hast not known me:
Isa 45:6 That they may know from the rising of the sun, and from the west, that there is none beside me. I am the LORD, and there is none else.
Isa 45:7 I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things.

“From the rising of the sun, and from the west” all men will be made to know there is none else but the Lord. When that day comes all men will know that the Lord does all things; meaning He forms the light and opens our blinded eyes. But it is also He who creates darkness in our lives and deceives us (Eze 14:9). He gives us peace, but in accord with His will, He also creates the evil, and He makes us to err from His ways:

Isa 63:17 O LORD, why hast thou made us to err from thy ways, and hardened our heart from thy fear? Return for thy servants’ sake, the tribes of thine inheritance.

The Lord is not the least bit bashful to inform us of the extent of His sovereignty. However, the dragon and the beast and the false prophet have all lied to us all, and by the Lord’s own design they were given to “deceive the whole world”:

Rev 12:9 And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.

Rev 16:13 And I saw three unclean spirits like frogs come out of the mouth of the dragon, and out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet.

Not one of these three principles is acting on their own. They are all doing only what the Lord sends them to accomplish “for Himself”:

Pro 16:4 The LORD hath made all things for himself: yea, even the wicked for the day of evil.

Once the Lord gives us eyes that see and ears that can hear that He is working all things, the good and the evil, “after the counsel of His own will”, then we can begin to realize that when we deny the truth of that verse, and all the dozens of others which accord with it, we will begin to realize that when we deny the Lord even “creates evil”, then we are actually doing nothing short of denying our Lord Himself and robbing Him of His own glory, and that is something He will not tolerate for long:

Isa 42:8 I am the LORD: that is my name: and my glory will I not give to another, neither my praise to graven images.

Isa 48:11 For mine own sake, even for mine own sake, will I do it: for how should my name be polluted? and I will not give my glory unto another.

Isaiah prophesied almost two hundred years before Cyrus was ever born. Like our own Savior, Cyrus was born for the specific purpose of saving the Lord’s people. All the Lord gave Cyrus to do, all the kings and all the countries he conquered, were for one purpose and one purpose alone. Cyrus was anointed of the Lord to deliver the Lord’s people from their Babylonian captivity and to rebuild the temple of the Lord. All glory in all He does in our own lives goes to Him and to Him alone.

That is the continuing theme for our next study:

Isa 45:8 Drop down, ye heavens, from above, and let the skies pour down righteousness: let the earth open, and let them bring forth salvation, and let righteousness spring up together; I the LORD have created it. 
Isa 45:9 Woe unto him that striveth with his Maker! Let the potsherd strive with the potsherds of the earth. Shall the clay say to him that fashioneth it, What makest thou? or thy work, He hath no hands? 
Isa 45:10 Woe unto him that saith unto his father, What begettest thou? or to the woman, What hast thou brought forth? 
Isa 45:11 Thus saith the LORD , the Holy One of Israel, and his Maker, Ask me of things to come concerning my sons, and concerning the work of my hands command ye me. 
Isa 45:12 I have made the earth, and created man upon it: I, even my hands, have stretched out the heavens, and all their host have I commanded. 
Isa 45:13 I have raised him up in righteousness, and I will direct all his ways: he shall build my city, and he shall let go my captives, not for price nor reward, saith the LORD of hosts.