How does God get his agenda for earth accomplished?

Let me count the ways: He can act unilaterally, with his unlimited almighty power, as when he commanded the great flood to begin. He loves to use his holy angels, a heavenly host of powerful spirit-creatures who hasten to do his bidding. He uses pastors and teachers, prophets and apostles, evangelists and deacons, and the vast army of believers who grasps his mission and heeds his call.

And he can use people you’d think would be his enemies. The Persians were not known as believers in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, but their king, Cyrus (whom we call “The Great”), had a special relationship with God: “This is what Cyrus king of Persia says: ‘The Lord, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth and he has appointed me to build a temple for him at Jerusalem in Judah’” (Ezra 1:2).

Is that amazing or what? Here is a ruthless warlord, fresh off his conquest of the Babylonians, master of the entire Middle East, who humbly acknowledges that it was Israel’s God who had given him his victories and who now felt a personal obligation to assist the Jews both in returning to the land of Israel and in rebuilding the sacred temple in Jerusalem.

Do you suppose that God has secret agents working for him in our day as well?