HOW DOES THE LORD STIR PEOPLE?

Hugo McCord

In 536 B.C. “Jehovah stirred up [‘ur, raise up, arouse, awake, excite) the spirit of Cyrus, king of Persia” to permit all the Jews to return home from their captivity in Babylon (Ezra 1:1). But Cyrus did not worship Jehovah. According to a clay cylinder (found in 1880 by archaeologists, now in the British Museum) Cyrus was “beloved of Bel and Nebo,” two Persian idols (INTERPRETERS’ BIBLE, p. 449; cf. Isaiah 46:1). How did the Lord stir up the spirit of a man who worshiped idols?

In an astounding prediction, he who can see “the end from the beginning” (Isaiah 46:10) let human beings know some 200 years before Cyrus issued his release proclamation that he would do so! Who but God could know a man’s name about 150 years (c. 740-590 B.C.) before he was born? What book but the Bible could describe about 200 years in advance (740-536 B.C.) what that man would do?

About 740 B.C. God commissioned a Jewish prophet to write a book: “Isaiah, get something to write on. Then write in big clear letters” (Isaiah 8:1, CEV). What he wrote in 66 chapters is still “alive and active” (Hebrews 4:12, CEV).

Isaiah wrote that the Lord would “stir up” [‘ur] someone “from the east” [of Palestine] who would subdue kings and conquer the nations (Isaiah 41:2). That someone would be named “Cyrus,” one whom the Lord described as his “anointed,” even “my shepherd” (Isaiah 44:28; 45:1).

To Cyrus, some 150 years before he was born, Jehovah said: “I will call you by name, and I will give you a title of honor though you do not know me” (Isaiah 45:4). To all mankind Jehovah said of Cyrus:

I will stir him up [‘ur] in right things, and I will make all his ways straight. He will build my city, and set at liberty my exiles, but not for a price or a gift (Isaiah 45:13).

Over a hundred years after Isaiah’s amazing predictions about the coming of Cyrus, a clean-living dedicated young man named Daniel became a “palace official” in Babylon (Daniel 2:49, CEV). He was “stationed in the king’s court” and attended to “the king’s business” (Daniel 1:5, 19; 8:27, NRSV) during the regnancies from Nebuchadnezzar to Belshazzar (Daniel 1:18-21; 5:1, 13). After the fall of Babylon, in the Medo-Persian Empire, Daniel served Darius the Mede (viceroy?) and Cyrus the Persian (539-530 B.C., Daniel 1:21; 6:28; 10:1).

Some evidence indicates that Daniel may have shown Cyrus the amazing old prophecy of Isaiah that even called his name. Josephus (ANTIQUITIES 11:1,2) wrote that Cyrus himself “read” the prediction. Consequently,

the LORD stirred up the spirit of Cyrus, king of Persia, so that he sent a proclamation throughout all his kingdom, and also put it in writing, saying, “Thus says Cyrus king of Persia, ‘The LORD, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth, and he has appointed 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 rebuild the house of the LORD, the God of Israel. He is the God who is in Jerusalem. And every survivor, at whatever place he may live, let the men of that place support him with silver and gold, with goods and cattle, together with a freewill offering for the house of God which is in Jerusalem’“ (Ezra 1:1-3).

How did Jehovah stir up the spirit of Cyrus? The commentator Adam Clarke believed that Daniel made a personal request of Cyrus, and that it was granted. Archaeologist Ronald Harker (DIGGING THE BIBLE LANDS, p. 34) says that an

inscribed brick of his [Cyrus’] is almost a repetition of the decree quoted by the Hebrew prophet Ezra allowing the Jews exiled in Babylonia to return and restore their temple in Jerusalem.

What is now called the “Cyrus Cylinder” refers to Cyrus’ liberal policy toward deportees: “All of their peoples I assembled and restored to their own dwelling places” (quoted in Free’s ARCHAEOLOGY, p. 237).

After Jehovah had stirred up the spirit of Cyrus in 536 B.C. to liberate the Jews, Zerubbabel led thousands of them back to Jerusalem. There “Jehovah stirred up the spirit of Zerubabbel” and his followers to rebuild the temple (Haggai 1:14). How did Jehovah stir the people? Ezra tells us:

When the prophets, Haggai the prophet and Zechariah the son of Iddo, prophesied to the Jews who were in Judah and Jerusalem, in the name of the God of Israel, who was over them, then Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel and Jeshua the son of Jozadak arose and began to rebuild the house of God which is in Jerusalem; and the prophets of God were with them supporting them (Ezra 5:1-2).

Apparently the Lord stirred up the spirit of Cyrus and of the temple builders in the same way: by words. In parallel, the Holy Spirit through the words of John the baptizer stirred up his listeners to be baptized, for John was miraculously filled with the Holy Spirit “even from his mother’s womb” (Matthew 3:7-8; Mark 1:4; Luke 1:15; 7:29).

Similarly, the Lord Jesus stirred up faith in Cleopas and his friend by words, as he “explained to them all the things in the Scriptures about himself” (Luke 24:13-27). Then to a larger group, including the apostles, Jesus stirred up faith as he “opened their minds that they might understand the Scriptures” by his “words” (Luke 24:33-44). He said to them:

These are my words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things which are written about me in the law of Moses and the prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled (Luke 24:44).

Inspired words “give understanding to the simple” (Psalm 119:130).

Jesus said that the Holy Spirit would come to “convict the world of sin” (John 16:8). How did he do it? Peter thought that the words of the Spirit from his mouth would convict the world of sin: “Men of Israel, hear these words” (Acts 2:22). Thus the Holy Spirit stirred the spirits of 3000 people as Peter “with many other words” preached (Acts 2:40). Those baptized were not stirred by an internal work of the Holy Spirit, but because they had “received” Peter’s “word” (Acts 2:41).

Similarly, the Holy Spirit stirred up the spirit of Lydia, as “the things which were spoken by Paul” opened her heart and she was baptized (Acts 16:14).

Likewise, the Holy Spirit “led” the Roman Christians to put “to death the deeds of the body,” not from his indwelling, but by the words of 16 chapters (Romans 8:13-14).

Likewise, the Ephesian Christians, if they paid attention to the words of the Spirit in 6 chapters, would be “strengthened with power through his Spirit in the inner man” (Ephesians 3:16). Sadly, the Ephesian Christians did not pay attention to the Spirit’s words, and consequently were not “strengthened with power through his Spirit in the inner man.”

By the Lord’s grace, they received another chance to be “strengthened with power through his Spirit in the inner man” if they would pay attention to additional words of the Spirit written to them by the apostle John (Revelation 2:1-7). John’s letter to the Ephesians carried a threat that “unless you repent” Jesus would disown them (Revelation 2:5). The words of both Paul’s and John’s letters to the Ephesians were the only means by which they could be “strengthened with power through his Spirit in the inner man.” There would be no inward stirring, no action that could be felt, by the indwelling Spirit. Inside of Christians he is mute. The only way he communicates is externally: “He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says” (Revelation 2:7, 11, 17, 29; 3:6, 13, 22).

If the Spirit stirs Christians on the inside to produce “the fruit of the Spirit” (Galatians 5:22-23), one wonders how non-Christian neighbors on their own produce “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self control.”

But Christians who are Bible readers do have an advantage over non-Christian neighbors, for the words of the Spirit tell Christians how to produce the fruit of the Spirit: “Put on ... a heart of compassion, kindness, lowliness, meekness, longsuffering; forbearing one another, and forgiving one another” (Colossians 3:12-13), “adding on your part” virtue, knowledge, self-control, patience, godliness, brotherly kindness, and love (2 Peter 1:5-7).

But a godly brother says that he feels an “urge” or a “nudge” from the Spirit what he should say or do, while many other godly Christians say they have never had an “urge” or a “nudge” from the Spirit. Is the Spirit partial?

On the other hand, all Christians say that they feel an “urge” or a “nudge” or a stirring when they listen to the words of the Spirit:

Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine upon you (Ephesians 5:14)....[B]e firm, unshakable, always abounding in the Lord’s work (1 Corinthians 15:58)....[W]ork out your own salvation with fear and trembling (Philippians 2:12).

The fact that the Holy Spirit stirs Christians on the inside by his external words has nothing to do with prayers being answered. God “can do infinitely more than we ask or imagine, according to the power that works in us” (Ephesians 3:20). But the only power mentioned in the Book that “works in you who believe” is “the word of God” (1 Thessalonians 2:13).

Our lack of ability to pray as we ought, our unutterable groanings, are remedied, not by the indwelling Spirit, but by the external Spirit in heaven as he “intercedes for the saints according to the will of God” (Romans 8:26-27). The Spirit, along with Jesus, dwells in us (Romans 8:9; Colossians 1:27), but inside of Christians they are mute, inert, inactive. However, outside of Christians in heaven they both speak up for Christians at the throne of grace (Romans 8:26-27; 1 John 2:1-2).