Answers Bible Curriculum: Lesson 5 - Restoring Worship

Lord, we thank you so much for this morning that we get to be with your people on the Lord's day. We acknowledge that your word tells us that where 2 or 3 are gathered in your name, there you are in the midst of them. Doesn't mean that you're not omnipresent or you're not with us when we're by ourselves, but there must be some way in which you choose to make yourself especially known when we're gathered together with your people. And we acknowledge, Lord, that we are the New Testament temple and you choose to.

fill us, particularly when we're gathered together. And so we just acknowledge your presence this morning. We ask you to bless those that are teaching our children and bless our time together as we just consider this second temple period and all that, you were doing in your sovereignty and And also that your spirit would just apply it to us today, help us to see how this text speaks today. In Christ's name we pray.

Amen. All right. So, we are in the middle of a quarter called God Protects and restores. This is gonna take us really the end of the Old Testament.

So, believe it or not, so if you, those of you guys who have been with us since the beginning, we started way back in Genesis, we've been moving through, not verse by verse, but basically book by book, historically. And then, once this quarter's over, we'll be jumping into, the New Testament. This morning's lesson is called restoring worship. So we're gonna be talking about the post-exhiic period.

Those of you guys that may remember our nine periods of Old Testament history, we started off with beginnings. Then Tushu, we went into the patriarchal period, 3 Tree, the Exodus, 4 door. We went to what? The conquest, 5 Hive is the Judges.

This was our mnemonic 6 sticks, the United Kingdom, 7 Heaven, the divided Kingdom, 8 gate, the exile, now 9 dime, we're coming down into the post-exilic period, we're returning back. So this is really the last. Period of Old Testament history. Next week, we'll be talking about Esther.

And then moving through the, the minor profits. As we head towards the New Testament. Let's just do a little bit of review from, last week. So, our last lesson was the final lesson.

Of the seventy-year period. And we talked about Daniel last week and, and the lion's Den, we talked about Shadrack, Meshack, and Ab Bendigo and the fiery furnace. we will come back to Daniel's visions a little bit later. And so, just remember that there were three different waves of captivity, starting with 607 when Nebuchadnezzar captured Jerusalem.

That's when Daniel and the others were taken up. And then there was the second deportation, 599, and then the final destruction, 588. Some people would put it at 566. What was significant about the third stage, the captivity?

Anybody remember the big event that happens in the final stage of that captivity? Close, but no cigar. You may recall Yes, so this is the absolute destruction of the temple. So when Nebuchadnezzar first came, he took Jerusalem, but that 3rd time, he completely destroys the temple.

burns, carries up all the vessels and, much of the gold and silver up into Babylon. And so, yeah, so that's the destruction of the temple. So our lesson today, we're gonna be talking about the first stage of the return. And there's actually 3 stages of return.

Just as there were 3 stages of exile, there's 3 stages of return back from the exile. And, so you can kinda see the 3 steps down and then the 3 steps up in this little graphic here on the left side. You've got the 607, Babylonian captivity begins. You've got, all the way down to Jerusalem is burned and temple destroyed 588.

And then, starting in around 5:37, we're gonna see, Cyrus's decree. We'll look at that today. Zerubbabel returned to Jerusalem. Then if you fast forward, you go to 467, there's Ezra's return and then Nehemiah's return.

So it gives you a little bit of an idea of what's happening here with the post-exilic period. of course, the big books and the post-exile are Ezra and Nehemiah, you've got Esther Haggai is one of the big books. And then, we're gonna Malachi will eventually hit Malachi. So that gives you another just the, some of the key players.

So we're talking about between the first stage of the exile to the last stage of the return, we're talking about approximately a 200 year period. Of Israel's history. So, what I'd actually like to do here. Is I wanna start with Isaiah.

So I fooled you into having you turn to Ezra. Let's turn to Isaiah first. The Isaiah 44:28 passage. So I wanna, we wanna set the stage chronologically.

Anybody remember when's, when is Isaiah giving his prophecies, approximate time? Yeah, yeah, we're talking in the 700s BC. And so this is a long time before Cyrus gives the decree to the to return. rebuild the temple, so.

If you'll notice there in verse 28 of Isaiah 44. Who says of Cyrus, he is my shepherd. And he shall fulfill all my purpose. Saying of Jerusalem, she shall be rebuilt in the temple, your foundation shall be laid.

And then look at verse one of the next chapter. Thus says the Lord to his anointed to Cyrus, whose right hand I have grasped to subdue nations before him and to loose the belts of kings to open doors before him that gates may not be closed. So we have here Isaiah giving prophecy in around 700 something BC mentioning Cyrus by name. this is a pretty big deal.

And there's Jewish tradition. In fact, Josephus talks about this. That Daniel perhaps was the one that would have pointed Cyrus to this text, to this prophecy. In fact, look at Daniel 6:28.

Ezekiel, Daniel, Hosea, Joel, Amos Obadiah. My eyes, you kill Daniel. So, if you look over there, this was, we looked at this last week on the back end of the Daniel in the lion's den. That whole narrative ends with this statement, verse 28.

So, this Daniel prospered during the reign of Darius. And the reign of Cyrus, the Persian. So Daniel was around during Cyrus's reign. The relationship between Darius and Cyrus is somewhat mysterious because other than what we have in the Bible, we don't really have any information about Darius.

And so, Bible scholars, they speculate that Darius was like a, a vice regent of Cyrus. And so, Darius would have come in, if you guys remember, remember Beltashazzar was partying and living it up while Cyrus and Darius are outside, ready to attack. He thinks everything's cool. Nobody can get through my walls.

All of a sudden, he says, hey, go get the vessels from the Jewish people, get the, the vessels from their temple. And he starts drinking and partying with the temple vessels. All of a sudden he sees writing on the wall, right? He has no, doesn't know what the writing means.

Daniel interprets the writing, Tonight, you are going to die. And that is, and sure enough, that's the night, I don't know if you guys remember the story, but Cyrus actually says, and this is extra biblical information, he says that the gods gave him an idea to basically cut off, or I think it was like to, to build a A dam or I forget, he rerouted the water that was heading in and they were able to go into Babylon on dry ground and came in and killed Beltashazzar and then Darius gets set up as the vice regent, as it were.

And so during that whole time, for whatever reason, And we don't know the details of how this works out. So, Darius comes in, kills the king, but leaves Daniel alive.

And so Daniel continues to advise Darius and to advise Cyrus. And so at some point, we just speculate, there's no particulars on this, but we would just have to speculate that, that Daniel perhaps showed Cyrus the prophecy that we just read in Isaiah. And Cyrus is seeing his name in the Jewish scriptures that God had said, you are gonna come down and you're gonna be the one that sends these people. And it just so happened that, the Persians had a very different foreign policy from the Babylonians.

The Babylonians, you guys know what they did. They destroyed the temple, they took all of the, they killed most of the people, but they did take some of the better peoples up to, I shouldn't say better. Some of the educated people, some of the people that they felt like they could benefit from, they took them up to Babylon or Nineveh, one of the two places, and then they left behind some people to mix races down in the Jerusalem area, Judean area. but the Persians had a very different philosophy.

They actually, encouraged people to continue to worship their gods as long as they were faithful to send their tribute. they could stay in their area, they could worship their gods and just send their tribute. And so Cyrus, we're gonna see begins to, send, Jews back to their land. let's go ahead and also look at Jeremiah 27:22 before we Look at the Ezra text.

It's Jeremiah that gives the particular prophecy about the time period. So it says, they shall be carried to Babylon and remain there until the day when I visit them, declares the Lord, then I will bring them back and restore them to this place. So again, Jeremiah is prophesying before. Judah actually gets carried away.

Into into Babylon. And Let's see, where is it? That it actually says it actually gives the 70 years. You may remember Losing track of where that is in Jeremiah.

Where he actually pronounces 70 years. Let me look back in my reference here. So I believe Yeah, look over at, let's look at a couple of other Jeremiah passes. Look at Jeremiah 25.

We're gonna look at 25, 11, and following. Yeah, there we go. This whole land shall become a ruin and a waste, and these nations shall serve the king of Babylon 70 years. Then after 70 years are completed, I will punish the king of Babylon and the nation, the land of the Chaldeans, for their iniquity, declares the Lord, making the land an everlasting waste.

I will bring upon the land all the words that I have uttered against it. Everything written in this book, which Jeremiah prophesized against the nations, for many nations and great kings shall make slaves even of them, and I will recompense them. For their recompense them for their deeds and works of their hands. So, Jeremiah not only prophesized that Babylon will take Judah into captivity, prophesized that Babylon will be taken captive themselves, which does happen underneath Darius and Cyrus.

Also look at the same book, chapter 32. We're gonna look at 32, 36 to 38. So in, in chapter 32, verse 36, now, therefore, that says the Lord, the God of Israel, concerning this city of which you say, it is given into the hand of the king of Babylon by sword, by famine, by pestilence. Behold, I will gather them from all the countries to which I drove them in my anger, in my wrath, and great indignation.

I will bring them back to this place, and I will make them dwell in safety, and they shall be my people, and I will be their God. So, so we've got the prophecy of Isaiah, we've got Dan, the prophecy of Jeremiah that's made before Judah's even taken into captivity. And then Daniel is serving underneath Darius and Cyrus, and we would speculate that Daniel reveals or, or, or shares these prophecies with Cyrus at some point, as Josephus indicates. Now, Josephus is writing, hundreds of years later.

But he is closer to the time of the events than we are. and Cyrus would have figured this out somehow. And so that's, that's why we have the speculation. So with all that, let's turn to Ezra chapter one now and let's, let's investigate this amazing return.

And again, just imagine that you're. You're one of the ones who's born in captivity. You've heard these prophecies, that one day you're gonna be returned back to the land. There would just be no reason to, other than by faith, when you're just underneath.

Nebuchadnezzar and his son, no reason to really believe that this would happen, right? We're talking about one of the most powerful rulers in human history. And God is saying, hey, you're gonna be going back to the land. So let's, let's start in verse one of Ezra.

Ezra one chapter, the first chapter, verse one. I'm reading from an ESB. The first year of Cyrus, King of Persia. That the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah might be fulfilled, the Lord stirred up the spirit of Cyrus, King of Persia, so that he made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom and also put in writing.

So what we have here in this first couple of verse or first verse, the kernel of the sentences, the Lord stirred up Cyrus. That's the main subject verb. that's happening here. So God stirs him up somehow.

he stirs him up for what purpose that the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah might be fulfilled. Why did God stir up Cyrus? To fulfill prophecy that he had given to Jeremiah. And, and what was it that he was going to do?

He proclaims something and then he writes it out. he proclaims, throughout his kingdom and puts something in writing. And this is what he proclaimed, verse 2, thus says Cyrus, king of Persia. Yahweh, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth.

And he has charged me to build him a house at Jerusalem, which is in Judah. Whoever is among you of all his people, may his God be with him and 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. So he's speaking of Yahweh, the God of heaven, all of his people.

Hey, God has called me to, to rebuild a temple for him. He is the God who is in Jerusalem. I don't know that there's strong evidence that here's Cyrus has suddenly become monotheistic. but he's pretty impressed probably with this prophecy that has been read to him out of Isaiah.

He's acknowledging that this God in Judah probably is a very powerful God and he is going to do what he sees in this prophecy. Verse 4, and let each survivor in whatever place he sojourns be assisted by the men of his place with silver and gold, with goods, with beasts, besides free will offerings for the house of the Lord, that is in Jerusalem. So part of this proclamation is he's, he's telling the Jews to go back to their land. But not only that, he's commanding their neighbors to help them.

So he wants the neighbors to help them. Cyrus is going to help them. And then we're gonna see a few other people get in on the help. So look at verse 5 and following.

Then rose up the heads of the fathers, the houses of Judah and Benjamin, and the priests and the Levites, everyone whose spirit God had stirred up to go up to rebuild the house of the Lord that is in Jerusalem. Again, God is stirring hearts. He stirs Cyrus's heart. Now he's stirring the hearts of the heads of family and the Levites, to, to go back for 6 and all who were about them.

So this would be their neighbors, aided them with vessels of silver, with gold, with goods, with beasts, with costly wares, besides all that was freely offered. So what does this remind you of? They have these pagan Babylonians slash Persians, just handing over gold and silver to the Jews. What's that remind you of?

Yeah, it just, it reminds you of, of the, of Israel being taken out of Egypt and people just giving them stuff. In that case, they're like, hey, get out of here. Don't let the door hit you on the way out. We don't want your God bringing his plagues on us anymore.

In this case, there's no sense of plague that has necessarily come upon Babylon or Persia. Although I'm sure Cyrus didn't come in and just shake people's hands when he took over, but there does, if you remember, the people would have observed some pretty amazing things. They would have obser observed Daniel giving, prophetic visions, Daniel in the lion's den, no doubt that story spread. Shadrack, Meshack, and Abendigo.

People are, are probably just watching their slaves, they're Jewish slaves and saying something is up with these people. Something is up with the God of this people that he is doing amazing things on their behalf. And now, here's Cyrus, who is now our overlord, is commanding that these people go back and rebuild the temple for their God. So they, they, they seem to be amazed, but they're also submitting to the edict from Cyrus.

So in verse 7, Cyrus, the king also brought out the vessels of the house of the Lord that Nebuchadnezzar had carried away from Jerusalem and placed in the house of his gods. That is just amazing. It's, we can read a verse like that, it's like, Yeah, yeah, OK, I've had my quiet time. But really think about what, what that means that Nebuchadnezzar, when he destroyed the temple, took the vessels that had been made for the worship of Almighty God, put them in the moon god temple, probably Nebu, right?

Or, or perhaps other gods that were up there in Babylon. And, and that these vessels were just in the, in the temple of false gods. Not only that, but Beltashazzar is sitting here partying with them at one point. before he sees the writing on the wall.

So now we have Cyrus saying, hey, take the vessels back to this place. then verse 8, Cyrus, King of Persia, brought these out in the charge of Mithradath, the treasurer, who counted them out to Shespezer, the prince of Judah. So he, he brings them out and has Methrodath. The treasurer to make sure everything's there and that this is all being handled in an orderly way, gives them to a person that's called the Prince of Judah.

We don't really hear a lot about Shes Bazaar after this. At one point, he is called a governor. It's really Zarubabel that takes the lead once they get down there. So it could be that Shesh Bazaar is some go-between.

Maybe he's like somewhat of an ambassador. We're not really sure. Methriath, the treasure. I just wonder sometimes if some of these, these novel writers, if they don't just rob and steal parts of names and put them in their books like Meth reindeer and stuff like that.

You see, it's a lot of, there's a lot of concepts in the Bible that just find up, they wind up in literature somewhere. Which, the Bible's been read for hundreds and hundreds of years. So, then verse 9, and this was the number of them, 30 basins of gold, 1000 basins of silver, 29 censers, 30 bowls of gold, 410 bowls of silver, 100 other vessels, all the vessels of gold and silver were 5400. All these did Bel, Shesbasar bring up when the exiles were brought up from Babylon to Jerusalem.

So these numbers would have been significant to those that are returning. they would have had a better idea of the number of vessels that would have been taken away by, Nebuchadnezzar, and so we don't really know with precision how this would affect the readers, the original readers, but my guess is, is they're looking at that number and thinking, wow. pretty much, pretty close to the number that was taken away by Nebuchadnezzar is being sent back by Cyrus. That's what people would spo, that's what, Bible scholars, Bible readers would probably, what would be the purpose of that number?

If it was significantly less, it'd be deflating. But if the people that were in the know at the time, it was like very close to the number or maybe the exact number of vessels, that would be pretty encouraging, wouldn't it? After 70 years that all of this stuff is being brought back down. And then, verse 1 and 2 of the next chapter.

Now, these were the people of the province who came out of the captivity of those exiles whom Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, had carried captive to Babylonia. They returned to Jerusalem and Judah, each to his own town. And they came with Zoruba Bell, Jeshua, Nehemiah, Soraya, Relia, Mordecai, Bill Shan, Miss Parr, Big Vi. Rahumm, Bena, and the number of the men and of the people of Israel are, and, and it goes in a list, the number of the, the people that returned.

Any of those names that are read in verse 2 stand out to you? Yeah, so Mordecai stands out and unfortunately, this is not the Mordecai of Esther, but it does show us that Mordecai would have been a, a name that people would have taken to themselves. Any other names stand out? Nehemiah, and unfortunately, this is not the Nehemiah that we're gonna read about later, but it is a Nehemiah.

And so, there is a Nehemiah that comes in this first stage. We're gonna read about another Nehemiah that's gonna come on the 3rd stage. Any other stand out? Zaruba Bell.

So this is the Zaruba Bell of the first stage of the return. And then Jeshua is also gonna play a significant role. Most of the other ones we don't really hear a whole lot about. Big buy, I like that name, Big Bay.

We're gonna have another kid, maybe name a big guy. Be cool. So, OK, so what do we have here in this, in this first section? It's pretty amazing.

Stuff. The Lord stirs Cyrus. The Lord is stirring the heads., of the, of the families and the priests, the neighbors are participating. Cyrus is helping, his treasurer is helping out.

The chess bazaar is helping lead, and God has preserved all these vessels. There is lots of stuff here for people to get excited about, who would have both been part of this return. But also, remember, when you're reading certain sections of scripture, Ezra wasn't written simultaneously with these events, right? These events happened, and then the Lord inspired, Phil's somebody to write this event, write about these events later for a later generation.

So, the original audience of the reading of Ezra were people that were already in the land, who are may perhaps being, feeling discouraged about some of the things that they're seeing, maybe, they're starting to feel. that things aren't exactly the way that we were hoping when we came back to the land. And so they're being called to remember, just remember what the Lord had done. You guys used to be up in captivity and look what the Lord did.

He stirred Cyrus. He stirred up the heads of households. Just like Pastor Milton was preaching last week, as we lose, there's times where we can lose the quality. Of our first love, that first place quality of our love, and one of the antidotes to that is what, remember.

Go back and remember what the Lord has done for you. And so the original readers of Ezra are being called to go back and remember all these things that God and His sovereignty had done for his people. And we're no doubt recipients of this text ourselves. And so we're being called to remember what God, the whole story of God's rescue of Israel is not meant to just be for the Jews, it's not meant to be just be for those of Judah, but for us to, to also recall how the Lord, here we are in 2018, and God's church is still in existence, God's people still spread throughout the, the earth, with all of the persecutions, the attacks of the devil, the world of flesh and the devil, we are still thriving.

There are still people worshiping the Lord. And this morning we will be meeting together as God's temple. And so lots, lots of, to be encouraged by. One of the things that we can see in this particular Section or that, is it reminds us of Proverbs 21, doesn't it?

In Proverbs 21:21, it says, the Lord has the heart of the king in his hands. He turns it any way, any which way he wants like a river, paraphrase. Let's, let's turn over so we get the exact phrasing there. Proverbs 21.

You guys know what verse I'm talking about, right? Yeah, the first verse there. The king's heart is a stream of water in the hand of the Lord. He turns it wherever he will.

And so we see in this text, the Lord just turning Cyrus's heart. Turning the hearts of the fathers. Say it again. Like Obama's heart, yeah, exactly.

Well, we see examples of this throughout the Bible. Remember in Genesis 20. Abraham was playing his little game again, giving his wife over to somebody, hey, I don't wanna die, I don't wanna get killed, which partially tells you how violent the times were, that he's worried about getting killed by his wife. But then Abimelech, says that the Lord withheld Abimelech, from doing anything dastardly, with Abraham's wife.

And so the Lord was the one that was doing that. In John, let's look at John 19, no, we'll just talk about John 19:11, Jesus acknowledges the Pilate, that you can't do anything unless the Lord grants it to you. If the Lord grants it to you, then yeah, you can do whatever he says, but if the Lord doesn't grant it to you, then you can't do anything. Romans 13, 1 Peter, we have just a reminder that all governing authorities are really Underneath God's control, we should submit to the governing authorities unless they're trying to get us to do something that's sinful or, or whatnot.

but we do see God in control of governing authorities. and so that begs the question, how should we view like just governing authorities or even just historical circumstances? We can think about God, what he did with Beltashazzar and Nebuchadnezzar and Cyrus and so on. How about something in more recent history here?

Why did the German panzer stop short of Dunkirk? I don't know if you guys have seen that Dunkirk movie or the Winston Churchill movie that recently came out., there, there was really no good reason for the Panzer division to just stop. If they would have kept going, they probably would have annihilated the 3, 300,000 English soldiers that were there on the beach and almost certainly that would have been the end of the war, from England's perspective and things would have turned a very different direction, but for some reason, all these panzers just stopped.

And they had outrun their infantry, maybe they're waiting for gasoline, but by most reports, they could have pressed forward.

But they gave, I think, another 3 or 4 days, which allowed Britain to get their men off of the beach, which turned the war. Well, I'll tell you, knowing who God is, I, I think it's pretty certain that God stopped the Panzer division to help the British get off the beach, which turned the war, significantly. We can think of just other instances, we can ask this question, who is to blame for the destruction brought upon Job's children? If we're gonna talk about God's sovereignty over all things, one of the places to go is the Book of Job.

Who's to blame? Should, is it the Sabians? That came from the north or the Chaldeans from the south, is it God, Satan, Job? Is it nature, the Sirocco wind?

What's that? Yeah, there's, it's clear that God is the first cause of all of these things, right? The Satan is standing before God. He's pointing to Job.

God says you are allowed to do this, but not that. And so Satan goes and does this and not that. And then the rest of the book of Job is trying to deal with this question of Job's like, why am I suffering? I haven't done anything wrong.

And his accusers are like, no, that can't be. We know theologically, you must have done something wrong to get this treatment. And the reader knows what's transpired in the heavenlies, but The actors don't know. And when God shows up on the scene at the very end, he really doesn't answer the question.

He just says, who are you? Who are you? I'm in control of this whole thing. And, and there's a sense of with Job does not cave in the way Satan says he's going to, but he does cave in in some respects.

And God confronts Job, but then also loves Job and, and then has Job sacrifice for his friend. So you see God's mercy in the end. By the way, he totally ignores the young guy. What's his name again?

Who's the young counselor? What's his, yeah, Elihu. Yeah. So Elihu shows up, right?

You guys remember that? So Elihu sits around, you don't even know he's there and all of a sudden he speaks up and then he goes on longer than anybody else. And then he says, is not knowledge perfected in me? and so when God shows up to start rebuking people, he doesn't even acknowledge Eli Hu.

this is very interesting. In ancient culture, to just totally ignore somebody, not even to acknowledge their presence, is the ultimate shame, right? Like if I came around and started rebuking a few people, but I ignored Brian, Brian should be like, whoa, I'm not even worthy of a rebuke, right? All this to say that we see, this raises the problem that we see in Ezra and the whole history of, of Israel being returned.

is really not much different than even the problem that we see in Job. And that is that God is in control of all of these things, we say yes, but he's also the one, he brought Assyria down to punish Israel, right? But then who punished Assyria? Babylon, who brought Babylon?

God. And then who punished Babylon with the Persians, God, who brought the Persians? God, you have the, and so then the Persians are sitting there, and then they get wiped out by Greece. And God is moving all of the pieces.

It's one of the big problems. I don't know when's the last time you guys read Habakkuk. He like spent time in Habakkuk this week. We don't normally just turn to Habakkuk, but What's the big problem of Avauk?

Habakkuk's like, God, your people are participating in such evil. When are you going to do something? God says, I am, I'm bringing the Babylonians down to punish them. Then Habakkuk says, whoa, whoa, whoa.

The Babylonians are more wicked than the Judeans or the, those in Judah. Is it, I forget, is it, it starts with Israel. I think, I think it starts with As Syria coming down. And so he's like, the Syrians are gonna come.

And he says, they're, they're, they're the wickest guys around. These guys are the Aztecs of our area. And so God says, well, don't worry, I'm gonna bring the Babylon, Babylonians to come in and punish them. And then he just puts his hand in his mouth and he says, Lord, it all.

Even if the, even if the grain won't come up and produce, and even if we don't have food, we can't have any more children, we will praise the Lord. And so it's that whole problem of evil thing. From a Christian perspective, we have an answer to the problem of evil, even if people don't like it. And that is, is there's a difference between there's a creator-c creature distinction.

God can righteously do things that his creatures cannot. We just don't have the ability, the power, the wisdom. God is the creator, so he has the ability, power, and wisdom to do things in a righteous way and control all of these pieces of history in ways that could never be done by a human being. If I were to do what God is doing, I would be Idi Amin or Hitler or something like that.

But God can control these pieces and remain righteous, because he is God. And we cannot, we cannot attain to his wisdom and his power and to keep these plates, spinning. Say it again. Is that helpful?

OK, so creator-c creature distinction. Right? You're the creature, so Brian, you can't do the things that God does, right? In the Westminster Confession of Faith, the way that the Westminster Confession of Faith talks about talks about 1st and 2nd causation.

A lot of times we're reading stuff like that, we're like, what what does that mean? It just means they're just trying to use terms to summarize what the Bible says. They basically say that God is the first cause of all things, yet there are secondary causes. So, when in 1993, when I showed up to Cornerstone Fellowship Bible Church, And then all of a sudden, like Katie Sellers at the time showed up at Cornerstone Fellowship Bible Church around the same time.

And then we started to get to know each other. What was the cause of that? Well, the first cause was God, but secondary causation, I had to go ask her on a date, right? And so, but when I asked her on a date, that was also caused by God.

But I had a responsibility to go do that if I was ever gonna get married. If I just sat around and didn't do anything, I would have never gotten to go on a date, would have never got married. But yet, we know that God is the first cause of all things. So it's 1st, 1st cause, second cause.

And all they're doing is they're just trying to say what the Bible seems to say, and they try to leave it there because Deuteronomy was at 31:31 or 29-29. The things revealed to us belong to us and our children that we may obey them, but the secret things what? You got it. 29, 29.

So it's, it's the secret things belong to the Lord. Right? We can only go so far and then we say the secret things belong to the Lord. There was one other.

Thing I wanted to say before we moved on from that. Where is that in the application? Oh, we'll save that for application, so, let's go ahead and turn to Ezra 3. So this isn't too.

Much further down the road. So the people come down and the first thing they do. which is interesting, it seems like, the people, those that are in leadership and then the people themselves, they, they really seem to get the reason for their return back. It's, they do need to build the temple, but they start off with the most important thing, sacrifice.

These, these folks haven't had the opportunity to sacrifice for 70 years, right? And so they've known the distance of the Lord and yet his mercy. So let's look at 3. We're gonna just read quickly 1 to 11.

When the 7th month came and the children of Israel were in the towns, the people gathered as one man to Jerusalem. Then arose Jeshua, the son of Jozade, with his fellow priests and Zarubabel, the son of Shielteel. with his kinsmen, and they built the altar of the God of Israel to offer burnt offerings on it, as is written in the law of Moses, the man of God. And they set the altar in its place, for the fear was on them because of the peoples of the lands, and they offered burnt offerings on it to the Lord, burn, burnt offerings morning and evening.

So what are they afraid of? It says the fear of the people was upon them. What are they afraid of? Do you think the people that are down there, this has become their house, they're really excited about the Jews coming back down and setting up their altar and starting to sacrifice on it?

No. So they've, they've come back into what was considered their land, but it is now a hostile land to them. Even though Cyrus has given this edict, it's, these people are, the people that are down in the areas we're gonna see, they're not excited about them being there. And so, there's some fear that has come upon them, but they say, let's get this baby up quick and start these sacrifices.

Verse 4, and they kept the feast of booze or the Feast of Tabernacles, as is written and offer the daily burnt offering by number according to the rule, each day required. And after that, the regular burnt offerings, offerings at the new moon, all the appointed feasts of the Lord, the offerings of everyone who made a free will offering to the Lord. From the first day of the 7th month, they began to offer burnt offerings to the Lord, but the foundation of the temple was not yet laid.

So they gave money to the masons and carpenters.

and food and drink and oil to the Sidonians and Tyran, Tyrians, those from Tyrus. to bring cedars, cedar trees from Lebanon to the Sea of Joppa according to the grant that they had from Cyrus, King of Persia. So they, so they, they barter to bring in cedar. There, there was a port in Joppa, which is 30-something miles from Jerusalem.

so, those from Sidon and Tire are bringing this, the stuff that they need. Then verse 8, now in the 2nd year after the coming to the house of the Lord of Jerusalem, in the 2nd month, this is about 7 or 88 months later, from the previous paragraph, Zerubbabel, the son of Shielteel, and Jeshua, the son of Jozadak, made a, a beginning together with the rest of their kinsmen, the priests, the Levites, and all who had come to Jerusalem from the captivity. They appointed the Levites from 20 years old and upward to supervise the work of the Lord.

And Jeshua With the sons and brothers, and Cadmel and his sons, the sons of Judah, together supervised the work in the house of the Lord, along with the sons of Hinnoad and the Levites and their brothers.

And when the builders laid the foundation of the temple, the priests in their vestments came forward with trumpets, the Levites, the son of Asaph, symbols to the praise of the Lord according to the directions of David, King of Israel. They sang responsively, praising and giving thanks to the Lord for he is good. For his steadfast love endures forever. So just imagine this, then we're gonna read the next couple of verses.

There has been no sacrifice. The foundation of the temple was destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar, 70 years have gone by. Finally, the people are able to come and start sacrificing, worshiping the Lord, these all these sacrifices which, point forward to Christ and his sacrifice. we are on this end of things, we, we speak of Jesus dying on the cross for us.

And that can get, somewhat tried if we're not careful. we look back to the Old Testament, it helps us remi it reminds us, and it gives us an appreciation for Christ once for all sacrifice. In order to live in covenant relationship with God by faith at this time, you were slaughtering animals, blood, animal after animal, sacrifice after sacrifice, in order for God to make his presence known because his people are sinful. God would would have a relationship with people, but he would not make his presence known unless these sacrifices are being laid out.

So, The people singing. Now notice the response there on the back half of verse 11, and all the people shouted with a great shout. When the pray when they praise the Lord because the foundations of the house of the Lord was laid. But many of the priests and Levites and heads of the father's household, who had seen the first house wept with a loud voice when they saw the foundation of this house being laid.

Though they shouted aloud, for joy, so that the people could not distinguish the sound of the joyful shout with the sounds of the people's weeping, for the people shouted with a great shout and the sound was heard far away. So you gotta just think, we haven't, we've skipped over the passages that talk about the hundreds and hundreds, several 1000 people that returned back. So, when the foundations are laid, there's this responsive singing and people are shouting. So those of you guys that have been to various sports events, if you go and you watch a baseball game, somebody hits a home run, it's pretty crazy, right?

I like baseball culture, but I went to one NFL football game a few years ago, and we stood up for the kickoff and everybody's shouting and going nuts, and as soon as the kickoff was done, I was ready to sit down. And nobody sat down. And they stood for the whole game. And I'm like, man, I like baseball.

Baseball, you can kinda sit down and relax a little bit, have a hotdog. These guys were just like animals for the whole game, just shouting and yelling. And then at halftime, there's people fighting and stuff. It was just nuts.

but here, we're, we're not, we're not having fighting, but just imagine thousands and thousands of people, the foundation is laid, and they're just going berserk. All the sacrifices have been laid. They're seeing the, the fulfillment of prophecy. Here they are back in the land.

And then the elderly people start sobbing. Now, a lot of the commentators believe that they're sobbing because the glory of this temple doesn't look like it's gonna be the glory of the next one when the foundations are laid. I don't know if that's it. And you guys can disagree with me if you, with me if you want.

The only thing that's happened so far is the foundation. So I don't know that the elderly are gonna look at the foundation and, and start crying because it doesn't look like the old one. If I was an elderly person coming back and I'd been in captivity for 70 years, and now I'm finally seeing the foundation laid again, I would just be weeping in joy. I would probably just, I weep at like when I'm watching, what's that neighborhood on PBS, the neighborhood guy?

I, I cry when I watch Mr. Rogers. So if I was seeing the foundation of the temple being laid after 8 years, I would just be convulsing probably and just enjoy that the Lord had fulfilled his promise and here we are back in the land. And so you've got people crying, you've got people shouting, and it's, we're just talking about thousands of people.

And and the sound was heard far away. So I don't, I don't know guys, if you've ever been, have you ever left a baseball game early, we, we almost never do that. But there was one time I was with some fuddy duddies. I won't say who they were.

I don't even remember who they were. But they said, oh, we gotta leave, we gotta go home. So we had to leave the game early. They thought it was over.

We get out in the parking lot, suddenly you hear this. Turn on the radio, the angels come back and they win. So I'm looking at my friends like, oh, but you, you could hear the shouting right out in the parking lot. It was just like overwhelming.

And so you can only imagine what these people are hearing from a far away, all the shouting and crying as, as the temple is being, the foundations of the temple are just being laid, just amazing, amazing stuff. So finally, let's turn to Ezra 6. To wrap this. so in Ezra 6, we're actually about 20 years or so.

So, some things have transpired. The people, so they lay the foundation, but then there's some political wranglings that go on. The people get scared. they don't finish the temple.

Haggai starts writing and, and Zechariah, they're writing to encourage the people, and this is where Nehemiah comes down to help finish everything. So what happens is, verse 13 to 22, then. This is 6:13. According to the words sent by Darius, the king, so we've some time has transpired, we've got, we're at Darius.

Ted and I, the governor of the province of, beyond the river, so that's actually what their province was called by the Persians. So they would have referred to it as Judah, but if they were talking to a Persian, hey, where do you live? Oh, I live beyond the river, or the NIV says Transjordan, right? If anybody have that NIB it'll probably say Transjordan, but the literal is beyond the river, is what the area is called.

Anyway, Shethar Baz and I and their associates, associates did with all diligence what Darius the king had ordered. And the elders of the Jews built and prospered through the prophesying of Haggai, prophet of Zechariah, the son of Edo. They finished their building by the decree of God of Israel, and by decree of Cyrus and Darius and Artaxerxes, King of Persia. And this house was finished on the 3rd day of the month of Adar in the 6th year of the reign of Darius, the king.

And the people of Israel, the priests, the Levites, the rest of the returned exiles celebrated the dedication of the house of God with joy. They offered at the dedication of his house of God 100 bulls, 200 g, 400 lambs, and as a sin offering for all of Israel, 12 male goats according to the number of the tribe of Israel. And they set the priests in their division and the Levites in their divisions for service of God at Jerusalem as it is written in Moses. So this is, these are a lot of sacrifices.

This is a lot of blood. This is celebration. If you compare this though to Solomon, it's nothing. Go back and read the numbers of Solomon's like 1,000s of this and 1000 of that when, when he is making the offerings for the opening of the first temple.

However, verse 19, on the 14th day of the first month, the returned exiles kept the Passover that hadn't been kept for a long, long time. For the priests and the Levites had purified themselves together. All of them were clean, so they slaughtered the Passover lamb, for all the returned exiles, for their, fellow priests. And for themselves.

It was eaten by the people of Israel who had returned from exile. Now notice this, and also by everyone who had joined them and separated himself from the uncleanness of the peoples of the land to worship the Lord, the God of Israel. What does that mean? It means there were actually converts that came down with them from Babylonia.

Now when does that happen, that a people gets carried off into captivity and then the captors convert to the god of the captives. And so you actually have people who return back down from, and, and now are following the God of Yahweh and they've come to this sacrifice and this Passover. No doubt these would have been people that would have heard and seen the miracles done for Daniel and Shadrach, Meshack, and Abendigo. And just watching what the Lord is doing for their slaves.

And so they come back down with them. And so Let's see, let's look at verse 22, and they kept the feast of the unleavened bread, 7 days with joy, for the Lord had made them joyful and had turned the heart of the king of Assyria to them. So that he aided them in the work of the house of God and the God of Israel, using the term king of Assyria is a, like when one king would conquer another king, they would take the crown. Of those kingdoms, right?

So we know that Cyrus is the king of Persia, but he conquered Nebuchadnezzar, who had also conquered Assyria. So by that train, Cyrus is also the king of Assyria. Does that make sense? you just keep all the crowns of the previous kings who had been conquered.

And so all this to say we've got, God has now fulfilled the return. Back to Israel and the foundations have been laid and, and we'll talk more about some of the challenges that they had in getting the temple finished, but now the temple's finished. And, and the Lord is being worshiped and, and his presence is being enjoyed. It says the Lord made them joyful.

And, and not only that, we have, converts from Persia or Babylon who had come down. So let's, let's talk about just a couple., just things that we can think about as, as, as far as why this text is in our In, in the Bible, God directs the heart of the king. God directed the hearts of leaders, he directed the prophets, his fingerprints are everywhere. all of this happened so that the praises and sacrifices could commence for the temple and so that the people could practice the festivals and sacrifices.

So they're worshiping and, just enjoying Yahweh through the sacrificial system, which we know is a pointer, it's a shadow, right? Of Christ and his sacrifice. So we don't wanna forget that all that was done. Here is the point forward to Jesus.

We have the temple, but today, the temple is right here. Jesus said to the woman at the well, yeah, salvation of the Jews, but the day is coming when people worship him, we worship him in spirit and in truth. And as the New Testament develops, we, we, we begin to see that the temple is no longer that place in Jerusalem, the temple is the gathering together of God's people, where two or three are gathered in my name. There I am in the midst.

So we see God just, just guiding history, all of this stuff is moving, and eventually it's gonna be moving to the, to the birth of the Messiah in Bethlehem. Let's talk about. This, is this it? Let me see.

Yeah, let's talk about this question real quick. How do the many passages that we looked at regarding the influence of God, the kingdoms of men, influence the way That you interpret and think about the government that is ruling over our country or other countries. This is probably all we have time for to finish up. It's clear that God was guiding this whole process.

All the way from the prophecies of Isaiah, the prophecy of Jeremiah, the movement of the people up into captivity. In fact, God warns the people, he says, don't even resist it, go. This is my will, you are being punched for your sins, but I'm gonna take you up into captivity, and I'm gonna return you back. So just submit to it.

And. And so, it's just interesting to see how the Lord is guiding his people, even as these leaders are moving and, and they're moving pieces and attacking one another. Daniel survives the whole thing. Think about some of the people that, that didn't return.

Jeremiah was taken into captivity. Daniel, Shadrack, Meshack, Bendigo. These are folks that God used for a time, but they never got to come back. they were, they were parts of the process.

But just think about how the Lord is guiding history today. we, we need to be careful about, on the one hand, putting too much trust. In our government to make everything better. On the other hand, to think that oh everything's out of control, we need to worry and, oh, the Lord, God used King James, who wasn't one of the greatest kings of England, let me tell you.

And yet God used him. To cause this translation of the King James Bible, one of the greatest pieces of literature in English history, and, and, And not to mention just the influence that it had on the world. you can think of Winston Churchill, we've talked about him, how the Lord, there's many ways in which the Lord used our previous president Obama. I know that, not one of my favorite presidents, Bill Clinton, but, one of the things he did in his administration is he passed something called the Equal Access Law.

there was a time in which they started to stop, they weren't allowing Christian clubs to meet. but Clinton pushed through this legislation that allowed Christian clubs to meet again as long as they were student-led. They were, any type of club could meet as long as it was student-led. They had to get a teacher advisor.

But I remember going and speaking when I was in high school to our district about why we should be allowed to meet and they had shut us down saying our Christian club could not meet and then Clinton came along, passed the equal access law, and that all changed. I don't think this guy's a believer, this guy did some pretty raunchy things, but the Lord used him to, to fight for the freedom of, of Christians to meet on public school campuses., you, I know there, there's probably different views, politically here, but there's ways in which we can look and see how the Lord is guiding the process in our country.

I see some, some changes, even like, one of the things that you can do is, is look at what advertisers are doing. Advertisers, a lot of times will give you a clue to what they think is going on in the culture.

And I'll tell you a couple of things, and you might think I'm a little crazy on this, but The Carl's Junior commercials have completely changed. If you watch the Super Bowl this last time, the commercials have changed. They've gotten more conservative and why, why is that? And one of the reasons that some people suggest they're calling it the Trump factor and underneath that in parentheses is the Michael Pence factor is that advertisers are actually viewing that there's a conservative movement in our culture that culturally in some ways we're becoming more conservative right now that doesn't mean it's gonna continue to go that way, but there's a reason why.

places like Carl's Jor felt like they wanted to advertise a certain way about 2 years ago because they felt like the culture was going this direction. And there's a reason why Carl's Jr. has pulled those commercials and now they're going a more conservative direction. There's a reason why the, the NFL commercials, the Super Bowl commercials were much better this time around than they were like 2 or 3 years ago, where you felt like you had to like just keep the TV off during the commercials.

the Lord sometimes just does things like that. He'll just start moving certain ways, doesn't mean that our leadership is our believers necessarily, but God will sometimes use things that move things a certain direction. Let me end with this story. Have, have you guys heard me do my little thing on, on Mitsuo Fuita?

How many have already heard about Mitsuo Fujita? All right, I'll do a different one. Gustavus Vasa. Anybody ever heard of Gustavus Vassa?

OK, that's good. So, we, if, if any of you guys ever take some of your literature classes in college, one of the things that's real popular to do is these slave narratives. There's a lot of slave narratives out there. Gustavus Vasa is, was a slave from Africa that was captured by another tribe and then he was sold into slavery, eventually made his way up into Europe.

And his, Gustavus Voassa is his European name, but he came into contact with believers. up in Europe and came to know Christ. And, not just any believers, but he came to know believers that were very much influenced by the Puritan reform movement. And so this guy wrote a slave narrative back in the 1600s that is just chock full of gospel, just sharing his testimony and, and at the same time, he is one of the early writers that began to make people aware of the slave of the horrors of the slave trade and was very influential later in, in basically seeing, it took a long time, but seeing slavery outlawed in Europe.

And so, but when you read his testimony, he, he argues that God and his sovereignty allowed him to be captured in Africa and brought to Europe so that he could come into contact with the gospel. What is he saying by that? Is he saying that slavery is a good thing? No, he repudiated slavery and he was one of the early writers that helped people see how terrible slavery was cause a lot of people just didn't know what was happening.

But in the sovereignty in the first causation, he saw that God had allowed him, he says right in his, in his narrative, if he would have stayed in his home country, he probably would have never come into contact with the gospel. But God in his kindness brought him to a place where he heard the gospel, he became saved, and then the Lord was able to use him to also speak out against the travesties of slavery. And so we see the Lord is just spinning plates. He's doing amazing things that go well beyond our knowledge.

we have to, there's right use and wrong use of doctrine. You can take God's sovereignty and say, oh, OK, well, that justifies the slave trade. No, that's not what Gustavus Vass would say. But you would say God can take terrible things.

I know people, I've met people who have been ripped from their place, from sex trafficking and came into contact with the gospel as a result of that, came to know Christ, they would repudiate what happened to them and being sex trafficked, but thank the Lord that they were brought into a locale that they came to know the Lord Jesus Christ. How does the Lord do that stuff? How does he make that thing happen? Which is I Yeah, so Brian says, Genesis 50:20, you meant it for evil, but God meant it for good.

So always have to, that's exactly right, Brian. We gotta keep that creator creature distinction, always in mind, that God is moving things and he can use, the devil thinks he's up to something and God just turns what the devil thinks he's doing backwards. No doubt the devil thought he was doing something grand to have Christ crucified on the cross, and he was just falling backwards into God's plan. Who can possibly do that, but our God, right?

Let's go ahead and pray and I'll be up here for questions. Lord, we thank you so much for just these reminders from Ezra. And just your power to prophesy and bring these things to pass to move kings and move leaders. Lord, we thank you for the great joy that you put into the hearts of your people as they saw the temple built.

And we pray, Father, you fill our hearts with joy today as we come together as your temple to lift up your name. We pray God that we would have great hope in your control over history. Help us to, to properly submit to leaders, but not in a sinful way. Help us to exhort our leaders and use our rights in this country.

Thank you for the rights that we do possess. but we pray, Father, that we would not overly trust in the leaders of government and to see that you are behind all. Lord, we so look forward to your return. Whenever your knee will bow and every time we'll confess that you are Lord.

We pray this in Christ's name. Amen.