"...I have surnamed thee, though thou hast not known me. I am the Lord, and there is none else, there is no God beside me; I girded thee, though though hast not known me..." Isaiah 45:4b, 5
Ignorance of the presence of God is not synonymous with His absence. We know that this is true of believers, but apparently it is the same with non-believers as well. The beauty of the will of God is that even those who do not know it are not necessarily outside of it. To be outside of it requires willful rejection after comprehension of it. Cyrus apparently neither knew of it nor had rejected it; he was apart of it all along.
God does indeed lead people through their ignorance to the realization of Himself, and that is the critical moment. Read John 3:19. Men are not condemned for merely rejecting the light, but for rejecting it after they have seen it, i.e., realized it. It perhaps goes without saying that meetings with God are critical moments, yet we treat them so lightly in spirit, and that to our hazard. On this side of the objective reality of redemption, the critical moment for the non-believer will be in regards to salvation; for believers, it will be in regards to deeper communion with Him. We reject either to our peril.
"To know You and be known.
Yet before I knew You,
You knew me..."
-Jon Vowell
Ignorance of the presence of God is not synonymous with His absence. We know that this is true of believers, but apparently it is the same with non-believers as well. The beauty of the will of God is that even those who do not know it are not necessarily outside of it. To be outside of it requires willful rejection after comprehension of it. Cyrus apparently neither knew of it nor had rejected it; he was apart of it all along.
God does indeed lead people through their ignorance to the realization of Himself, and that is the critical moment. Read John 3:19. Men are not condemned for merely rejecting the light, but for rejecting it after they have seen it, i.e., realized it. It perhaps goes without saying that meetings with God are critical moments, yet we treat them so lightly in spirit, and that to our hazard. On this side of the objective reality of redemption, the critical moment for the non-believer will be in regards to salvation; for believers, it will be in regards to deeper communion with Him. We reject either to our peril.
"To know You and be known.
Yet before I knew You,
You knew me..."
-Jon Vowell
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