Restored Determination

Ezra 5: 1-17 Page 461

June 18, 2023

The story is told of a NY planetarium that issued an invitation for people to apply for the opportunity to be part of a crew on the first flight to another planet.

A remarkable 18.000 people applied.

They gave the applications to a panel of psychologist.

These psychologist, after a thorough examination of the applications,

came to the conclusion that the vast majority of those who applied did so because they were discouraged

with their current lives,

wanted to escape them and start a new life somewhere else.

It sounds ridiculous but how many of us have not wished for the same thing.

We may have never had a desire to be a part of the first interplanetary colony

but what person has not gotten so discouraged and frustrated with life that they have not wished for a new start.

Discouragement is the loss of courage and confidence. Discouragement robs us of the desire and ability to press on. It also skews the way the perspective by which we view life. There are a number of causes for discouragement.

Why do we become discouraged?

Sometimes discouragement stems from a physical cause.

We are simply tired and worn out from working too long and too hard without a break.

Or perhaps a bodily illness inclines us toward depression and discouragement.

Discouragement often comes when people disappoint us.

We were counting on someone who let us down.

We had high hopes for a person who turned against us or failed spiritually and morally.

It’s not hard to hear the discouragement in Paul’s lonely voice from prison, “Demas, having loved this present world, has deserted me and gone to Thessalonica” (2 Tim. 4:10).

Disappointment with God is another cause of discouragement.

You prayed and worked for something, but it did not happen.

As far as you could tell, it would have been for God’s glory if it had come about, but it fell apart.

You even had claimed a promise from the Bible as you prayed and worked,

but from your perspective, God didn’t keep His promise.

You begin to wonder whether you should ever try again to do anything for the Lord.

In Ezra 4:4, we read, “Then the people of the land discouraged the people of Judah, and frightened them from building.” The work on rebuilding the temple in Jerusalem stopped for about 16 years.

the people’s focus shifted to building their own houses, and they neglected building God’s house. If the subject came up, they responded, “We tried that. It didn’t work!”

How could this dismal situation be reversed?

How could the Lord’s people put their discouragement behind them so that they could finish the task of rebuilding the temple?

To turn things around, the Lord raised up two prophets, Haggai and Zechariah, who spoke to the people in the name of the God of Israel (Ezra 5:1).

Under the renewed leadership of Zerubbabel and Jeshua, the people began to rebuild and in spite of further opposition,

the work was finished in a little over four years.

So our chapter gives us some clues on how to overcome discouragement in our work for the Lord:

Find encouragement in God’s Word

· Derek Kidner writes, “Like every spiritual advance, from Abraham’s to the missionary expansion in Acts, this venture began with a word from the Lord. And in common with the rest, it was quickly tested and threatened” (Ezra & Nehemiah, Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries [IVP], p. 53).

· The Old Testament prophets did not so much expound on God’s already-written word;

rather, they received new revelation directly from God for His people.

When these prophets spoke, the Jewish people realized that God was speaking through them.

· We no longer have prophets to give direct revelation from God.

But in this case, we have the heart of the prophets’ messages preserved for us in the Old Testament canon.

· When we are discouraged, the thing that will most refresh us is to hear God speaking to us in our particular circumstances through His Word.

Although some will testify that the “open the Bible at random” method has worked, I would not recommend it.

I recommend reading the Word consecutively or systematically.

I have often found that the passage of that day has particular relevance to the very circumstances I am going through at the time.

There are a number of ways that you can have a fresh encounter with God’s Word,

but in every case, you must have exposure to that Word.

In other words, it won’t happen if you never open your Bible or sit under the preaching of the Word.

When you are discouraged, you may not feel like getting into the Word,

but you must go against your feelings, if need be, and expose yourself to the Word.

You can listen to the Bible on tape or CD. I often find great help reading the sermons of men of God from the past, like Spurgeon, Jonathan Edwards, or John Bunyan.

You may need to schedule a special time on a day off to take your Bible and get alone with God. But God speaks to us through His Word, and so you must take the time and effort to expose yourself to it.

When you do, God’s Word will do at least 3 things:

It reveals our wrongdoing

That is the main thrust of Haggai.

He directly confronted the people with their sin of building their own houses while neglecting God’s house. God used him to stir up Zerubbabel, Jeshua, and the people so that “they came and worked on the house of the Lord of hosts, their God” (Hag. 1:14).

You may be thinking, “When I’m discouraged, why would I want to be confronted with my sin?

That doesn’t sound very encouraging!”

It may not be pleasant at the moment,

but it’s the medicine we all need.

Sin destroys us and damages those who are close to us.

To neglect the Bible because it confronts our sin is like avoiding the doctor when we know that we have cancer.

It may not be pleasant to go through the treatment, but without it we will die. Scripture is profitable for reproof and correction (2 Tim. 3:16).

John Piper - He calls reading the Bible supernatural act. What then, is supernatural act of reading? In essence it is a reliance on God the Father, and the Spirit, and Christ to do for us what we cannot do for ourselves as we seek to see what is really there in Scripture and as we seek to savor it and be transformed by it. There are numerous ways that the New Testament describes this divine assistance.

Paul shows that the remedy for the blinding effects of Satan is the illumining power of God:

For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. (2 Corinthians 4:6).

He is describing what happens to us when we are saved.

In other words, similar to the act of God in creating light at the beginning of the world,

God creates light in the human heart —

the light of the knowledge of the glory of God.

That is what we see in Scripture when God does this.

When we read the scriptures with the eyes of Gd he tunrs the light and reveals our sin. (bugs/sin scatter at light/truth)

Read it, savor it, devour it

The word of God is revealing and it...

It reminds us of His grace

While Haggai confronted the people’s sin,

Zechariah gave them hope that God would remember them and keep His covenant promises to send the Messiah. Zechariah’s name means “whom the Lord remembers.”

His father was Berechiah, which means “the Lord blesses.”

His grandfather (mentioned in Ezra 5:1) was Iddo, which means “at the appointed time.”

Those three names sum up the message of Zechariah: “Whom the Lord remembers, He blesses at the appointed time.”

Although Zechariah was the prophet of hope and encouragement,

he began his message by talking about God’s fierce wrath because of His people’s sin

Zech. 1:2 “2 “The Lord was very angry with your fathers.”

But immediately he follows it with the Lord’s gracious invitation,

Zech. 1:3 “3 Therefore say to them, Thus declares the Lord of hosts: Return to me, says the Lord of hosts, and I will return to you, says the Lord of hosts.”

If we will repent, God will be gracious to us.

This is illustrated in our text: Ezra 5:1 is a new, new beginning.

The first new beginning was in chapter 3,

when the returned exiles gathered in Jerusalem,

set up the altar,

celebrated the Feast of Booths,

and laid the foundation of the temple.

Then the opposition discouraged and frightened them,

resulting in 16 years of doing nothing about the temple.

But now, we have a second new beginning.

Thank God that He allows for new, new beginnings, and new, new, new beginnings!

New Beginning in your life by following the Lord and saying no to the world and sin.

It helps us realize how to live

Without the word from these two prophets, most of the Jews back in the land probably thought that they were doing okay.

They may have congratulated themselves for giving up their comfortable lives in Babylon and making the long and dangerous journey across the desert.

Perhaps they thought, “Sure, we don’t have a temple yet, but these things take time.

The Jews back in Babylon don’t have a temple, either.

We’re better off than they are. At least we came back to the land!”

But then the prophets spoke and the people realized that to please God,

they needed to commit themselves to rebuild His temple.

It’s easy to think that you’re doing okay in the Lord if you compare yourself to other Christians.

We always seem to compare ourselves to those who aren’t quite as committed as we see ourselves!

But then you come to God’s Word, and it exposes the thoughts and intentions of your heart! You realize that God wants purity in your thought life.

He calls you to love Him with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.

You learn that Christ loves the church and gave Himself for her.

But you don’t love His church like that! So the Word shows how we need to adjust our thinking, our priorities, and our behavior to please God. T

To overcome discouragement, we need a fresh encounter with God’s Word.

We also need to...

Focus on what God has already called you to accomplish

Discouragement had led the people to abandon work on the temple for 16 years.

These prophets called them back to work.

There is something encouraging about serving the Lord, especially if you’ve been on the sidelines for a while.

There is the encouragement that He can even use me, in spite of my previous failures.

Whether it’s physical labor or being used spiritually in someone’s life, there is joy in knowing that you are laboring for God’s eternal kingdom, and that someday you will hear Him say, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”

One cause of discouragement is that we become self-focused.

Often that self-focus generates self-pity and self-justification for why we quit serving the Lord. With Elijah, we begin to say, “I have been very zealous for the Lord,” but everyone else has “forsaken Your covenant, torn down Your altars and killed Your prophets …. I alone am left; and they seek my life, to take it away” (1 Kings 19:10).

That kind of self-focus prevents us from seeing the needs of others and ministering to those needs.

We see that the Israelites solution to their issue and discouragement was to do what God had already told them to do.

Turn to Haggai 1 Page 941

Haggai 1:4–9 “4 “Is it a time for you yourselves to dwell in your paneled houses, while this house lies in ruins? 5 Now, therefore, thus says the Lord of hosts: Consider your ways. 6 You have sown much, and harvested little. You eat, but you never have enough; you drink, but you never have your fill. You clothe yourselves, but no one is warm. And he who earns wages does so to put them into a bag with holes. 7 “Thus says the Lord of hosts: Consider your ways. 8 Go up to the hills and bring wood and build the house, that I may take pleasure in it and that I may be glorified, says the Lord. 9 You looked for much, and behold, it came to little. And when you brought it home, I blew it away. Why? declares the Lord of hosts. Because of my house that lies in ruins, while each of you busies himself with his own house.”

Get back to work for the Lord!

It will take your focus off of your problems and onto what God can do through you.

Have faith that God is in Sovereign

Discouragement comes, not only when you are weary but it comes in when you and I lose our focus. We lose our focus on what we need to

The people had lost focus that God was still in control.

God allowed King Cyrus to come to power.

Cyrus sent them back to the promise land

He was paying for the Temple to be built

Even when the construction stopped for 16 years God was raising up another king to restart the building.

This was all of Gods plan, He was directing all of it.

Ezra 5:5 “5 But the eye of their God was on the elders of the Jews, and they did not stop them until the report should reach Darius and then an answer be returned by letter concerning it.”

“The eye of the enemy and the eye of God are continually upon us in all the work of life” (Preaching Through the Bible [Baker reprint], 10:174). Knowing that the eye of God is upon us, we can persevere even when the enemy is watching and trying to get us to quit.

2 Corinthians 1.3, “3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort,”

.. he means that He is the God of all encouragement!

God brings encouragement into our lives to offset the Devil's discouragement as we bring our problems and pains to Him allowing His hands to rest on our hands!

Place that discouragement in the hands of God! You say, ''I'm not sure I can do that''

Oh yes you can! Let me ask you a question: Is your problem bigger than the hands of God?

Corrie Ten Boom, ''Look at the world and you'll be distressed. Look within and you'll be depressed. Look at Christ and you'll be at rest. God's been with you all year long and He's with you right now! And He says to every discouraged saint

When you are discouraged put your eyes on the Lord.

How long did you leave your eyes there? Look what the Psalmist said in Psalm 123:2 “2 Behold, as the eyes of servants look to the hand of their master, as the eyes of a maidservant to the hand of her mistress, so our eyes look to the Lord our God, till he has mercy upon us.” ""

I leave my eyes on the Lord

until he shall be gracious,

until he shall answer my prayer,

until he comes to my aid,

until he comes and defeats that discouragement

just keep looking to the Lord. You and I need to fix our eyes on the Lord and we need to remember that he is able.

He is not just able but he is loving and longsuffering

Hold to that faith even when nothing else works, because God is sovereign and we are His people.

Stand firm despite continued opposition.

As we saw last week, the enemy will not be idle when we make a new beginning with the Lord.

No sooner had the people begun to build than Tattenai, the governor over Israel, and his sidekick and their colleagues came and challenged them (5:3).

Ezra 5:3 “3 At the same time Tattenai the governor of the province Beyond the River and Shethar-bozenai and their associates came to them and spoke to them thus: “Who gave you a decree to build this house and to finish this structure?””

In their defense, they were only doing their job. They reported to King Darius, who began his reign with a number of challenges to his rule.

These men were making sure that the Jews were not plotting rebellion against the king.

But even so, the enemy was using them to threaten the people to abandon the work again.

But in this case, they did not demand that the work stop until a word came from the king. Rather, they permitted the people to continue building until such a word came back, which would have taken four or five months. T

Tattenai sent a letter to Darius, which our text quotes.

It reveals several interesting things.

For one, it is surprisingly accurate. Unlike the letter of 4:11–16, which distorted the truth to make the Jews look worse than they were, this letter just states the facts, asking for verification.

I don’t know whether the governor assumed that the Jews’ story was so far from the truth that the king would easily disprove it,

or whether he was a man of integrity who was just doing his job.

But he states the Jews’ claims accurately and asks the king to confirm or deny those claims.

Also, the letter shows that the Jews gave a strong testimony to Tattenai and his colleagues of God and His ways.

They let them know that they were servants of the God of heaven and earth (5:11).

Ezra 5:11 “11 And this was their reply to us: ‘We are the servants of the God of heaven and earth, and we are rebuilding the house that was built many years ago, which a great king of Israel built and finished.”

They give a brief history of Israel, that formerly they had worshiped at a temple which a great king of Israel [Solomon] had built.

But because of their sin, God had given the nation into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar, who destroyed the temple and deported the people to Babylon. But King Cyrus had issued a decree to the Jews to return and rebuild the temple. He had even restored the gold and silver utensils and entrusted them to Sheshbazzar (who was either a co-leader with Zerubbabel or another name for Zerubbabel).

The Jews had given Tattenai and his colleagues a strong witness about God and His covenant faithfulness to His people.

There is an application for us in overcoming discouragement.

One way to persevere in the face of opposition is to give a strong witness of our faith in Jesus Christ.

That commits us so that we know others will be watching us.

If we will be bold for the Lord, those watching will see our steadfastness and firmness of the faith even while discouraged and opposed.

Showing the love of God working in your life despite hardship is something that confounds the world.

If we can show that we have hope in hardship, then there is nothing that can take our faith away.

Conclusion

To modernize a familiar legend, the devil had a garage sale. He marked all his tools with their appropriate price: hatred, envy, lust, deceit, lying, and pride. Laid apart from all of these was a rather harmless looking but well-worn tool marked much higher than the rest. A buyer pointed to it and asked, “What is that tool?” The devil replied, “That is discouragement.”

“Why is it priced so high?” the man asked.

“Because it is more useful to me than the others. I can pry open a man’s heart with that when I can’t get near to him with the other tools. Once inside, I can make him do whatever I choose. It’s badly worn because I use it on almost everyone. But few know that it belongs to me.”

The devil’s price was so high that the tool of discouragement was never sold. He still uses it on God’s people.

By God’s grace, through His Word, we can overcome discouragement. “Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your toil is not in vain in the Lord” (1 Cor. 15:58).[1]

[1]Cole, S. J. (2017). Lesson 5: Overcoming Discouragement (Ezra 5:1–17). In S. J. Cole (Ed.), Ezra (Ezr 5:1–17). Galaxie Software.