Date January 7, 2024
From The Series: When
God Rebuilds…
Part # 2 God Is at
Work
Ezra 1:1-4
Mountain View
Evangelical Missionary Church
Good
morning. I hope you are as excited as I am to begin this new series along with
the new year. The more research and reading I have been doing in preparation
for this series, the more parallels I see to our lot as Christians today,
especially in the West at this time in history.
It is
no secret that we are living in a post-Christian era in our country. I was
reading a poll earlier this week that claimed that 63% of Canadians identify as
Christian. I have to call Malarky on that stat. We only have to look at the
declining attendance in most churches to recognize that this statistic is incorrect.
Ask yourself, “How many of your friends, family, and coworkers are unchurched
at the moment?”
Christianity does not have to be the majority religion for us
to live devout lives. That is one of the lessons that we can draw from the
Books of Ezra and Nehemiah that we will be studying in the coming weeks. We saw
last week how these two books cover a period that is a little over a hundred
years and how differently the people of the Kingdom of Judah were forced to
live while under the captivity of the Babylonians.
Over the
coming weeks, we will see how that time of exile became a time of dormancy and
the people would emerge and be called back to worship the one true God, Yahweh.
There are parallels between the Exodus and the return to Jerusalem and the
reintroduction of the Law to God’s people. Structures would have to be rebuilt,
the traditions and God’s Word would have to be retaught, and the sense of
community would have to be re-established.
I think
there is a parallel between the faithful during the time of Ezra-Nehemiah and
the faithful of the church today. We went through a type of refining process
during Covid. We saw large amounts of people opt to stay home, rather than
continue the faithful worship on Sundays. Faith was placed in government
officials and their policies to keep us safe rather than on the protection of
God. Many churches closed and many nominal Christians have stayed away.
I think that
this may not be a bad thing. Covid has become a bit of a reality check for the
church and its leaders. It can be seen as a new opportunity to reach the lost.
Covid has exposed some of the lies that we were telling ourselves. Trust in
secular institutions has plummeted, and those who were seeking answers and
security from “experts” and “government” have realized that they are just
people too.
We will see
by the end of these two books, that the former exiles have had their chief
structures, both the visible ones like the Temple and the walls of the city
rebuilt, but also the invisible structures such as worship and observance of
God’s Laws and their covenant to their God renewed. The renewal of the covenant
comes from the people, not from God’s part. God did not walk away from His
people, they walked away from Him. A time of rebuke and correction was needed
to bring them back to Him, for them to see the value of their covenant and His
protection of them.
This new
sense of identity went hand in hand with political subservience. They still had
political masters over them. Admittedly, the Persians were much kinder masters
than the Babylonians. The Persians had a policy of encouraging those under
their Empire to continue to worship their gods. Adherence to a state religion
was not required, unlike the case of the Jews under Nebuchadnezzar. We only
need to look at Daniel chapter three and the examples of Shadrach, Meshach, and
Abednego, to see what life under the reign of the Babylonians was like for
God’s people.
For the
Jewish people under the rule of the Persians, we will see that they become more
distinctly Jewish than at any time during their existence of a sovereign state.
There would be less opportunity for dreams of grandeur, they had learned hard
lessons. Men of steel had emerged to be stronger and better leaders.
I think
there is a lesson here for us today. As Christians, we need to forego the
concept that we are living in a society that is welcoming or hospitable to
Christians. We are no longer held in high regard in the public’s opinion. We
are seen as unloving and unaccepting because we cling to the moral standards of
the Bible. Weak leaders within the church, are bending the knee to culture and welcoming
concepts such as normalizing the LGBTQ lifestyle, accepting Critical Race
Theory as the lens through which we should look at our different ethnicities,
and we should all pay attention to our defeats in life as a way to measure our victimhood
and thus realize our intersectionality. Equality at all costs is the only
desired outcome.
There is a
very big movement going on right now in the United States among Evangelicals,
where a certain faction is trying to gain momentum for Christian Nationalism.
Certain leaders feel that the only way to turn the country around is to
institute a system built on Christian values and principles. Bringing in a
system where Christianity is recognized as the official religion for the
nation. This idea is tied very heavily to their post-millennial eschatology or
end-times viewpoint and its interpretation of Scripture. They see the literal fulfillment
of the Great Commission of all nations being made disciples of Christ, as a
prerequisite for His return.
The
problem with this theory is that we have seen in countries in Europe where a
state religion or state church has been implemented and the result was that
people proclaimed that they were Christian or they were told by their
government that they were Christian, but true conversion did not take place.
Today some of these places such as Germany, Denmark, and England are some of
the least churched countries in the world.
All
that being said, I think that now is the time for the occasion for Christ to
call His people back to faithful churches and there is a tremendous opportunity
for lost and hurting people to find the answers and the community that they are
looking for in these same faithful churches. We simply need to rebuild the
visible and invisible structures within the local church to support these
people. We need to offer the spiritual and emotional support that people are
searching for.
There
has been a bit of a cultural disturbance going on over the past couple of
months that unless you read certain independent media you may not have heard
about. Back in October, former tattoo artist and television personality Kat Von
D, who was on the show LA Ink, which I’m sure you all watch every week, anyway,
Kat Von D was a big celebrity in the world of tattooing and she was famous for
her practice of witchcraft and the occult.
About
15 months ago, she publicly disavowed her lifestyle of witchcraft and the
occult and just this past October, she was baptized in a Baptist church in Indiana,
and she is now posting videos on Instagram of her homeschooling her young son.
Of course, mainstream media and the usual celebrity programs will all be
ignoring this story, as they do not wish to cover anything that may shine Christianity
in a positive light. But God is at work in this lady's life, and He has rescued
her from a lifestyle that lacked joy and hope and was leading her to an
eternity separated from her Creator.
I
want us to be encouraged by these small victories and to recognize that
although we as a country may be under a time of judgment from God, His faithful
people in His faithful churches can still have a major impact on individuals
and society as a whole.
So
much for the introduction. Let’s take a look at today’s passage and during this
message today, I will try and cover these three main points: 1) God is at work
behind the scenes; 2) God can move pagan leaders; 3) We must maintain a
faithful life while under hostile rule.
Those are the points that I will try
to cover today that I want us to be aware of. Our main application point will
be the last. That will be our big call to action for this lesson, to try and maintain
a faithful lifestyle while under hostile rule if not from our government, then
certainly from our culture.
Let’s
open our Bible together and read the passage. If you have your Bible on your
phone or tablet, that is fine, I encourage you to follow along on those as well.
If you forgot your Bible this morning, there should be a Pew Bible underneath
one of the chairs in the row in front of you. You will find today’s main
passage on page 374 of the Pew Bible.
READ EZRA 1:1-4
PRAY
Let’s look at
verse one a little more in-depth. “In the first year of
Cyrus king of Persia, in order to fulfill the word of the Lord spoken by Jeremiah, the Lord moved the heart of Cyrus king of
Persia to make a proclamation throughout his realm and also to put it in
writing:”
The Bible doesn’t go
into much detail about the transition from Babylonian control to Persian
control. Perhaps in the eyes of the author, the transition was not really the main
purpose of the book, therefore it deserved little fanfare. The transition was rapid and accomplished
without much effort.
At
times, God can be the master of understatements. 2 Chronicles sums up in very
few words several books of the prophets and seventy years of captivity under
harsh Babylonian rule.
Just turn back one page to the left and turn with me to 2
Chronicles chapter 36 starting at verse 15. “15 The Lord, the God of their ancestors, sent
word to them through his messengers again and again, because he had pity on his
people and on his dwelling place. 16 But they mocked God’s
messengers, despised his words and scoffed at his prophets until the wrath of
the Lord was aroused against his
people and there was no remedy.”
Stop right there for a moment. Those few lines
cover all the books of the Bible that contain all the warnings from the various
prophets from Ahijah who spoke to King Jeroboam, to Elijah, Obadiah, Elisha,
Jonah, Amos, Hosea, Micah, Isaiah, Nahum, Zephaniah, Huldah, Jeremiah,
Habakkuk, to Obadiah, all have their writings summarized in these two verses.
A few weeks back when we were working our way
through Habakkuk, we saw how Yahweh caused four prophecies to be fulfilled
during this period of time.
2
Chronicles continues, “17 He brought up against them the king
of the Babylonians, who killed their young men with the sword in the
sanctuary, and did not spare young men or young women, the elderly or the
infirm. God gave them all into the hands of Nebuchadnezzar.” This single verse
covers a period of 25 years and the reign of four Jewish Kings.
We continue
in verse 18, “18 He carried to Babylon all the articles from
the temple of God, both large and small, and the treasures of the Lord’s temple and the treasures of the
king and his officials. 19 They set fire to God’s temple and
broke down the wall of Jerusalem; they burned all the palaces and destroyed
everything of value there.” This is a very important fact here: the articles
from the Temple being carried off, both large and small. It is the misuse of
the smaller items that caused the death of the Babylonian King Belshazzar when
he and his nobles and their wives drank from the goblets that were taken from
the Temple. God permitted his assignation and the Persian ruler Darius to
assume control of the kingdom.
Look at verse 20 and how 70 years of suffering is communicated in just a
few words, “20 He carried into exile to Babylon the
remnant, who escaped from the sword, and they became servants to him and his
successors until the kingdom of Persia came to power. 21 The
land enjoyed its sabbath rests; all the time of its desolation it rested, until
the seventy years were completed in fulfillment of the word of the Lord spoken by Jeremiah.” We will come
back to what Jeremiah said in a few minutes.
Verse 22 continues, “22 In the first year
of Cyrus king of Persia, in order to fulfill the word of the Lord spoken by Jeremiah, the Lord moved the heart of Cyrus king of
Persia to make a proclamation throughout his realm and also to put it in
writing:
23 “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. Any of his people among you may go up, and may the Lord their God be with them.’ ”
This brings us to
point number one of the sermon. We see how God has been at work throughout all
of these activities that were summarized here in these few lines of Scripture. From
the more than 300 years when prophets were warning the Israelites and Judeans
to turn from their ways and back to their God, to the looting and protecting of
the sacred objects from the Temple through which the desecration of those
objects by the use of the Gentile King and his court caused his downfall.
All of these
events by all of these actors over hundreds of years of time were being controlled
by the Sovereign God. I know some people feel that man has a moral agency that
God cannot violate and thus man has free will to decide these things. But ask
yourself, what are the odds that all these events would happen in just this
order to ensure that all the prophecies that God’s messengers gave would come
true? Those odds must be astronomical.
I think the
simpler explanation is that in God’s Sovereignty, He has the power to control
these things, the power to control not just the ends, but the means also, so
that, His Will, will be carried out to the nth degree.
Did you know that
there are over 300 Old Testament prophecies concerning the Messiah that Jesus
fulfilled in His coming, His Ministry, and His death on a cross? The Odds of a
single person fulfilling just eight of those prophecies is 10 to the power of
27. That’s odds of 1 in 10 with 27 zeroes behind it.
Let’s
look at the eight prophecies that were compiled to reach these odds. 1) The
Christ would be born in Bethlehem, 2) There would be a forerunner or someone
proclaiming the arrival of the Christ, 3) Christ would enter Jerusalem on a
donkey, and 4) He would be betrayed by a friend, 5) The betrayal by the friend
would come at a cost of 30 pieces of silver, 6) and then it would be cast down
to purchase a potter’s field. 7) the Christ would remain silent while on trial,
even though he was innocent, and finally, 8) The Christ would be crucified or
nailed to a tree. The fulfillment of just these 8 prophesies results in the odds
of 1 in 10 to the power of 27.
Why is
the fulfillment of these prophecies so important? They are important because
they help to establish who exactly Jesus of Nazareth actually was. He was not
simply a man, or a good teacher, or a suitable substitute. Jesus Christ was God,
who though Divine in Nature considered it not something to be held onto, but
something to put aside so that He could take on human form and live a perfect
and sinless life, thus becoming the perfect atoning sacrifice for our behalf.
Our
sinful nature had caused us to become separated from our Creator. Just as sin
entered the World through the actions of one man, so too, the actions of one
man would become the suitable sacrifice for all of the elect and those who
accept this free gift, this gift known as Grace.
It is
through the actions of Jesus and the gift of Grace that we can now make our way
back to God the Father in a restored relationship that results in our being
adopted into the family of the Father. We become co-heirs and co-regents with
Jesus Christ in the times to come. Those who remain separated from the Father
because of their unresolved sinful Nature will be eternally separated from God
into a place of eternal torment.
Friends, if you don’t yet have a personal relationship with
Jesus, if He is not your Savior, what are you waiting for? We have recently
seen examples that none of us know when our time will be up on this earth. Do
not delay in this decision! Accept Jesus, repent of your sins, confess with
your mouth that He is Lord and you will be saved.
Ok, Turn
the page in your Bible, and let’s look a little further at today’s passage.
Look at the simple phrase near the end of verse 1, “the LORD moved the heart of
Cyrus king of Persia…”. This is the second point of today’s message: God can
move Pagan Leaders when it is His will to do so.
If mankind
has a moral agency that God cannot violate, then how do we explain this verse?
Scripture clearly states that the LORD moved the heart of King Cyrus. If not,
the LORD then why did Cyrus decide to make this proclamation? A decree that
would itself fulfill another prophecy given by another of God’s prophets some
200 years before King Cyrus was even born.
Listen to the words of Isaiah for chapter 44 and verses 24 to 28.
“24 “This is what the Lord
says— your Redeemer, who formed you in the womb:
I am the Lord,
the Maker of all things,
who stretches out the heavens,
who spreads out the earth by myself,
25 who foils the
signs of false prophets
and makes fools of diviners,
who overthrows the learning of the wise
and turns it into nonsense,
26 who carries out
the words of his servants
and fulfills the predictions of his messengers,
who says of Jerusalem, ‘It shall be inhabited,’
of the towns of Judah, ‘They shall be rebuilt,’
and of their ruins, ‘I will restore them,’
27 who says to the
watery deep, ‘Be dry,
and I will dry up your streams,’
28 who says of
Cyrus, ‘He is my shepherd
and will accomplish all that I please;
he will say of Jerusalem, “Let it be rebuilt,”
and of the temple, “Let its foundations be laid.”
Isaiah continues in
chapter 45 with his prophecy concerning Cyrus. Listen to this,
““1This is what the Lord says to his anointed,
to Cyrus, whose right hand I take hold of
to subdue nations before him
and to strip kings of their armor,
to open doors before him
so that gates will not be shut:
2 I will go before
you
and will level the mountains;
I will break down gates of bronze
and cut through bars of iron.
3 I will give you
hidden treasures,
riches stored in secret places,
so that you may know that I am the Lord,
the God of Israel, who summons you by name.
4 For the sake of
Jacob my servant,
of Israel my chosen,
I summon you by name
and bestow on you a title of honor,
though you do not acknowledge me.
5 I am the Lord, and there is no other;
apart from me there is no God.
I will strengthen you,
though you have not acknowledged me,
6 so that from the
rising of the sun
to the place of its setting
people may know there is none besides me.
I am the Lord, and there is
no other.”
Isaiah spoke these
words sometime between 740 and 701 BC and King Cyrus sent out this decree in
the year 539 BC. King Nebuchadnezzar was captured and executed with
little effort. Perhaps the King was exhausted after his run-in with Yahweh.
King Nebuchadnezzar fell in 539 BC, so Cyrus was obedient to God almost immediately
when he sent out this proclamation. Cyrus was wise enough in his decree to
acknowledge that all of his blessings had come from the LORD. Even though according
to God in his prophecy from Isaiah, Cyrus did not acknowledge him on a personal
level.
Now,
I don’t want to mislead you here. I said earlier that Persia had a policy in
which they encouraged all their subjects to practice their local religions to
the best of their abilities. This may have simply been a strategy to help keep
the peace and to look for ways to minimize the agitation of the subjects in
your kingdom, both old and new subjects.
However,
history records that this was not a universal policy that was followed by all
Persian Kings. Darius, who came after Cyrus and also ruled over the former
kingdom of Judah where Jerusalem is located did not follow this policy
completely when he invaded and conquered Egypt about 20 years after Cyrus.
Darius destroyed Egyptian Temples as he moved through the region, although he
left a Jewish Synagogue intact in the Elephantine region of Western Egypt. This
fact is recorded by both Josephus and in scrolls known as the Elephantine
Papers.
There
may have been a particular reason for the savagery shown to the Egyptians.
Perhaps some priests were caught in a plot to overthrow the Persians, it is not
clear, nonetheless as a rule the Persians encourage local worship of local
deities.
It
was also common practice for the Persians to return stolen religious artifacts
that they came across in their conquests. The return of these items was often
accompanied by either instructions to rebuild shrines and temples, or in turn to
make allowances for the financing to be raised to carry out these tasks.
This
attitude towards the temples was generous as it was seen as being less
threatening to the Empire than the building of walls which could be seen as the
re-fortification of cities and former capitals. This explains the delays that
we will see in future chapters, as King Darius fell prey to the conspiracies of
regional rivals to the Jews.
This
example of God moving pagan leaders in the Old Testament is the perfect example
and reason why we should be praying for our leaders today. We should be praying
that they become obedient to the leading of Christ and submit to his will. We
can take comfort in the fact that this passage also gives us a solid indication
that God’s wrath against a specific people will last only for a specific time.
Our
God is not a capricious God who goes about rebuking and disciplining people
indiscriminately or for prolonged periods of time. God the Father is a loving
Father who disciplines those He loves for a variety of reasons, one of which,
is to bring His wayward children back to Him.
This
brings us to the third and final point of this morning’s lesson: the importance
of maintaining a faithful life while under hostile rule. This is evident in verses
2 through 4 of today’s passage in Ezra. Turn there with me and let’s look at it
together.
“2 “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. 3 Any of his people among you may go up
to Jerusalem in Judah and build the temple of the Lord, the God of Israel, the God who is in Jerusalem, and
may their God be with them. 4 And in any locality where
survivors may now be living, the people are to provide them with silver and
gold, with goods and livestock, and with freewill offerings for the temple of
God in Jerusalem.’ ”
First, just an
interesting historical sidenote, this proclamation was issued in Hebrew and the
second declaration as discovered in the archives, which the account is shared
in chapter 6 of Ezra, that written decree was issued in Aramaic.
Look closely at
the instructions for God’s people found in verse 3. “any of His people
among you.” So, let me ask you this question, is that how you identify
yourselves? As HIS people? As Christians, sitting in a Christian church,
do you identify yourself as one of His people? Or, do you prefer to keep your
association with Jesus more at an arms-length type of deal?
Are you embarrassed to be called a
Christian by family and friends? Are there differences in your actions from
those around you who do not know Christ? Will be like those coming out of exile
and answer the call to rebuild His church, or will you sit back and think
that’s the Pastor’s job, that’s what we pay him to do?
Look again at verse four and the
instructions contained in there. “And in any locality where survivors may now
be living, the people are to provide them with silver and gold, with goods and
livestock, and with freewill offerings for the temple of God in Jerusalem.”
They are to provide them with… They are to provide, the wording there is not
optional. From the royal decree, it was obvious that it was expected that all
of God’s people would participate in the rebuilding process in one manner or
another.
There was the need for silver and
gold. Not to sound too crass about this but it takes money to do God’s work. A
building of some sort is required. You will either pay rent or a mortgage.
Utilities will need to be paid. Lights on to read by heat to sit comfortably
in. Chairs to sit on. Bibles to read, paper and ink for bulletins, computers
and projectors, musical instruments to play on, hymnals to sing from, the list
goes on and on. If you have someone who is dedicated to full-time ministry,
then the love and support of that person and their family will be critical.
You know, many
pastors and preachers hate speaking about money and giving because they worry
about being accused of having the wrong motives for the lesson. By God’s
providence, this is the second message that I have given about money this week.
In our bi-weekly Bible study we are working our way through the Gospel of Mark,
we came to the pericope of the widow’s offering in the Temple and we worked our
way through the teachings of Jesus around money.
Speaking about
money, an attitude that many churches and church-going people have regarding
their pastor is that they think they need to keep him poor to keep him humble.
I never understood that thinking. It’s not your job to keep your pastor humble,
God and the Holy Spirit will do that if it is needed, trust me. Your job is to
love on the pastor and his family and live up to the responsibility of caring
for your pastoral staff, that God has entrusted to you. Just like it is his
God-given responsibility to answer the call to guide you and shepherd you and
love on you as a representative of the Father.
What would you
rather have your pastor spend his time doing, worrying about how he will make
ends meet and feed his family or be concerned with the spiritual well-being and
the proper feeding of you and your souls. The proper soul-care of the
congregants is often overlooked by both pastor and congregation.
Notice in verse
four, that the giving is not limited to just the areas of silver and gold.
“Goods and livestock” are also mentioned as well as “freewill offerings”. Goods
and livestock are gifts in-kind that can be given and freewill offerings were
those gifts that were over and above the tithings and temple taxes that were
required from each observant Jew.
I would go so far
as to include an additional category and that is your time and talents. When
times are financially tough, there are other ways in which you can give to further
the Kingdom of God and its work. You can give your time and your talents. I
won’t go into details here because the options for this are as innumerable as
the people in a church. God has gifted each of you with a talent that is to be
used in His service. It is my job to encourage you to discover what that talent
is and find a place for you to use it here in this church. It is your job to
look for that talent and be willing to step-up and serve when God asks you to.
If you have a
talent that the church does not yet have a ministry for, then come and talk to
me and let’s work it out and find some place for you to serve. You know, it may
mean some sacrifice on your part to serve. God asked those who were in exile to
step out of their comfort zone and do something for Him, something that he had
already equipped them to do through His provision.
But here’s where
that worldview comes in again. If you think that you are responsible for your
salvation, maybe you don’t think you owe God anything. Maybe you think He owes
you for reaching out and initiating salvation. Maybe you think that your
salvation is a partnership and all you have to do is come to church on Sundays
and sing a few songs and listen to a message and give some money and you’ve
done your part. After all, you’re busy. You’ve got work to do, kids to raise,
grandkids to visit, places to go, and people to see and you’ll fit God in where
your schedule allows. Maybe even church attendance is seen as optional when you
feel like it. Who wants to be nagged by that preacher guy anyway?
Or, maybe, you
recognize that God is the one who chose you and rescued you from your pit of
despair and that He gave you a priceless gift that you could not earn and
certainly don’t deserve, yet He loved you enough to adopt you into His family
and open your eyes and ears to the greatest gift; a knowledge and relationship
with His only begotten Son.
I’m going to close with a prayer as Angela comes back up
to lead us with one final song and then I’ll come back with a brief conclusion
and benediction.
PRAY
CONCLUSION
Again, here are the points that I tried to cover today:
1)
God is at work
behind the scenes even when we can’t see it.
2)
God can
move pagan leaders and we should pray for that to happen.
3)
We must maintain
a faithful life while under hostile rule and look for ways to join God in His
rebuilding process.
Doxology:
This morning’s doxology comes from Ephesians 3:20-21:
“20 Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or
imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, 21 to
him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for
ever and ever! Amen.”
Please join us downstairs for coffee and
treats in our fellowship time, Go in peace and have a blessed week.
