Lessons From Ezra – Lesson 2
God gave promises thru Jeremiah about the return before they were even taken away in captivity. Years later God stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia to write the decree for the temple to be rebuilt. This was the start of God fulfilling the promises that were in His word in Jeremiah.
Here is fact number 1. God’s Work will always line up with God’s Word.
And just think for a moment how far God was working ahead. He had Cyrus born at the right time and had his parents in just the right place and God worked in the circumstances of life to put Cyrus on the throne.
It is not that Cyrus is anything special, but God in His perfect foreknowledge knew that Cyrus would properly respond to God stirring him up.
We saw that God also worked in advance to give certain leaders the ability to give and when God stirred them up they gave.
Many times we can see in hindsight God’s hand in working ahead. And not only in God’s Word, but we at times can see God working ahead today. In big things and in little things.
In hindsight I can see God was working in sending us to some church plants. I can see how God used that to bring us to doing what we are now.
A while back I was stirred up to send the lady in North Carolina a box full of tracts. And there was extra room in the box and I had a bunch of the small John and Romans that we are not using. And it just so happened that they filled the empty space perfectly.
No one contacted me to do this. No one brought it up. This was just one of those still small voice things so I did it.
They have one of those tourist trains in Bryson City. And twice a week the lady in North Carolina would go and stand on the block between the train station and the parking lot. And hand out tracts as the people would walk to their cars.
Giving out the gospel there has been a joy to her. Then they started some kind of construction on that block and have it all dug up and the street closed. So she has not been able to hand out the gospel there. She has no one that will go out with her so it was bothering her that she is not getting the gospel out.
And along comes the box we sent full of Chick tracts and John and Romans. So since she cannot go to the train for a while, she is taking ziplock bags and putting a John and Romans and a Chick tract in them and delivering them to houses. Setting them at the foot of mailboxes or in driveways.
God foreknew all about the construction. God knew how not getting His precious word out would bother His child. So God ahead of time stirred someone up to send her some John and Romans and some Chick tracts. And now some people are getting John and Romans and Chick tracts who would not have gotten them before.
God works ahead. Both in the big things and in the small things to get His work done.
And we saw over and over again in chapter 1 how it was all voluntary. No one was forced to go and no one was forced to give. God works in the heart, God does the stirring, God gives the call, and man responds out of a free will.
This is how God works when He is fulfilling His promises that have to do with giving mercy and grace. It is different when God is fulfilling His promises of judgment. We are not talking about that here.
But when God wants His work done to fulfill His promises He calls, He stirs up the heart, and He guides, He does instruct, and He works in the circumstances of life, but man needs to respond voluntarily. Jesus said if you love me keep my commandments. The motivation needs to come from the heart and be voluntary.
Can you think of an exception in the Bible? Can you think of a man who God forced against his will? And it was a case of incredible great mercy being shown.
Jonah. God told him to go and he refused. He went the opposite way. Got in a boat and when the storm came up. Jonah said it is God just throw me overboard and the storm will cease.
Jonah would rather be thrown in the ocean and left than go. He was then swallowed by a whale and it took 3 days in there before he said he would go.
He then walked into the city not saying a word. Walked to somewhere near the middle of the city, stops and says 8 words. Only 8 words that is it. Turns around and walks out. No repeating them. No sermon. No explanation, No mercy offered, No pleading for people to turn.
Jonah then goes outside the city and sits down waiting and wanting for God to destroy it.
Jonah was forced to go and it is just ugly. The entire service of Jonah was ugly. It was without heart, with no correct motivation. No zeal for the work. Jonah did the absolute minimum that he could get away with. No prayer for God’s work to be done. His service was dry, it was poorly done. You could say it was improperly done.
The heathen king of the city hears about the 8 word message and he is the one that has the message proclaimed throughout the city. The people repent, God delights in showing mercy and He did. The entire city was saved from destruction.
The book of Jonah teaches many things, our purpose is not to go over all of that. But one of the things the book of Jonah so vividly shows is just how ugly forced service in the work of God is.
Some might say if God wants all the world to hear the gospel and since His children are not doing it, and if it is best for the lost to hear it, then why does not God just force His children to do it.
For many reasons. One of them is that kind of forced service is ugly. And one of the purposes of the book of Jonah is to show a vivid example of just how ugly that is. Service is to be done willingly. This is what we see in the book of Ezra. God stirred up the hearts of people and they voluntarily in faith responded.
And we saw one more thing. And that is someone was stirred up to do every job. God needed porters, and singers, and Levites, and givers, and leaders. And someone from every category needed answered the call voluntary.
The way God worked in Ezra is also a N.T. truth.
Phil 2:13 For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.
That brings us to Ezra Chapter 3
Ezra 3:1 And when the seventh month was come, and the children of Israel were in the cities, the people gathered themselves together as one man to Jerusalem.
So they answered the stirring up of God and picked up their families and their lives and moved to the wreck that was called Jerusalem. They voluntarily done that.
They have no home waiting for them that is ready to move into. No job waiting. No stores setup to get what you need. No one was there ready to welcome them with open arms. In fact the people in the area were enemies of God’s people. It was going to be hard and they knew it. And still they went.
That took faith. Don’t minimize that. This is another fact. When God moved to get His work done, and again we are not talking about the work of judgment. When God moves in a heart to get His work done, there will always and I mean always be room left for faith.
Why? Because without faith it is impossible to please Him. God wants to be counted on. He wants to be believed. He wants to be trusted. And so room is always left for the person who is stirred up to exercise faith.
This was true for them and it is true for us today. God has stirred us up to get His precious Word out. And so in faith we do it. When you do it in faith out of love for the Lord, then you don’t have to see the results. If the requirement for doing God’s work was immediate results, if that was the motivation, then everyone would quit.
I for one am glad that the requirement to do God’s will is not results. The requirement is faith. Trust that God is working, that He has a plan, that this is His will. And do it in faith and let the Lord work as He wills. Faith pleases God. His Work must be done in faith.
Now comes another important example.
Ezra 3:2 Then stood up Jeshua the son of Jozadak, and his brethren the priests, and Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, and his brethren, and builded the altar of the God of Israel, to offer burnt offerings thereon, as it is written in the law of Moses the man of God.
They started by doing what they could. And they did that according to the Word of God.
Some people would have made the case to wait until the temple is built. After all everything should be the best that it can be. We are doing this for God after all. I have actually heard those type of excuses from many over the years.
People will say no on starting a program to get the gospel out. I heard that from one pastor. I have been thinking about starting that but I have no one that would go. I said I will go. He did not start it, so I just went alone.
He wanted to wait until conditions were right before doing what was right. That is not biblical. You do what is right regardless of the conditions.
They were there, God’s word says for them to do these things, so they just start doing them.
Ezra 3:3 And they set the altar upon his bases; for fear was upon them because of the people of those countries: and they offered burnt offerings thereon unto the LORD, even burnt offerings morning and evening.
Ezra 3:4 They kept also the feast of tabernacles, as it is written, and offered the daily burnt offerings by number, according to the custom, as the duty of every day required;
Ezra 3:5 And afterward offered the continual burnt offering, both of the new moons, and of all the set feasts of the LORD that were consecrated, and of every one that willingly offered a freewill offering unto the LORD.
Ezra 3:6 From the first day of the seventh month began they to offer burnt offerings unto the LORD. But the foundation of the temple of the LORD was not yet laid.
They have no temple yet. The foundation is not even laid yet. They do not let that be an excuse for not doing what God said. I admire this. This is a great example. They did not make excuses. They did not wait until everything is perfect. Obedience is not to be dependent upon having perfect circumstances.
So they answered the call in faith, and the first thing they did was get worship started. They put first thing first. Now it is time to get busy on the Temple.
Ezra 3:7 They gave money also unto the masons, and to the carpenters; and meat, and drink, and oil, unto them of Zidon, and to them of Tyre, to bring cedar trees from Lebanon to the sea of Joppa, according to the grant that they had of Cyrus king of Persia.
Ezra 3:8 Now in the second year of their coming unto the house of God at Jerusalem, in the second month, began Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, and Jeshua the son of Jozadak, and the remnant of their brethren the priests and the Levites, and all they that were come out of the captivity unto Jerusalem; and appointed the Levites, from twenty years old and upward, to set forward the work of the house of the LORD.
God’s work takes time. It is now the second year. A lot of rubble had to be removed from the temple site. We learn in Nehemiah’s day all the rubble is still not cleaned up out of the streets. The place was really bad. Here we see it took a year to get things ready for the foundation to be laid.
God is not in a hurry. He knows the timeline. It is His plan. God never expects you to do more than you can. God is not upset that this is not being done in month two. God sent them there at the correct time because He knew how long it was going to take.
Ezra 3:9 Then stood Jeshua with his sons and his brethren, Kadmiel and his sons, the sons of Judah, together, to set forward the workmen in the house of God: the sons of Henadad, with their sons and their brethren the Levites.
Ezra 3:10 And when the builders laid the foundation of the temple of the LORD, they set the priests in their apparel with trumpets, and the Levites the sons of Asaph with cymbals, to praise the LORD, after the ordinance of David king of Israel.
Ezra 3:11 And they sang together by course in praising and giving thanks unto the LORD; because he is good, for his mercy endureth for ever toward Israel. And all the people shouted with a great shout, when they praised the LORD, because the foundation of the house of the LORD was laid.
They were thankful and gave God thanks for He is good, and because His mercy endureth forever toward Israel. They are thankful because God did not totally forsake them. They got to the point before they were taken away into the captivity that they no doubt deserved to be totally forsaken. But God has great mercy. And they are thankful for this.
It is always a good thing to be thankful and to express that to the Lord.
Some of the people there were not thankful. They were too focused on the past. They were not focused on the greatness of God’s wonderful mercy. They were not focused on what God was doing currently. They were focused on what God did in the past.
Ezra 3:12 But many of the priests and Levites and chief of the fathers, who were ancient men, that had seen the first house, when the foundation of this house was laid before their eyes, wept with a loud voice; and many shouted aloud for joy:
Ezra 3:13 So that the people could not discern the noise of the shout of joy from the noise of the weeping of the people: for the people shouted with a loud shout, and the noise was heard afar off.
Some were crying because the new Temple was not going to be as large as the one that Solomon built. They were comparing their work, their ministry if you will with someone else’s. This is never a good thing to do.
God had a purpose for Solomon’s Temple to be the way it was. And so God provided the resources for it to be built that way.
God has a different plan for this Temple. If God wanted it to be exactly the same and just as large then the God who works in advance would have provided the resources necessary to make it just as big.
God did not want and did not require that every one of the Temples were built the same way. Solomon’s Temple was huge and when it was dedicated God’s presence filled the Temple and they all had to leave for a while.
God is not going to do that with this Temple. What God does in one work is not exactly the same as what God does in another work.
Many don’t understand this. One preacher will have a bus route so another one thinks that he must have one. Someone has a recovery ministry so they think they have to have one. One has graded Sunday school classes or started what they call growth groups so they think they have to.
They want to have everything someone else does and be all the same.
God does not work that way. He does not stamp out everything using a cookie cutter.
Those men should not have been crying because their Temple was going to be smaller. They should have been joyful that God is giving them a Temple.
Some looked at the foundation and were joyful and giving praise. Happy to be doing the Lord’s work. Some looked at the same foundation and were crying. They were both looking at the same foundation.
The reaction to it is a choice. Whatever work God sends our way, we need to be joyful and thankful about it. We should not compare ourselves to others who God has given different work to do. We need to stay focused and by joyful about the work that we have been given to do.