The Rod of God's Blessing

Ezra 1:2-4 ESV

2 “Thus says Cyrus king of Persia: The Lord, 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. 3 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. 4 And let each survivor, in whatever place he sojourns, be assisted by the men of his place with silver and gold, with goods and with beasts, besides freewill offerings for the house of God that is in Jerusalem.”

Today, as we begin our sermon, I am going to do something that I normally don’t ask you to do as soon as I begin a sermon by asking you to turn your Bibles to Jeremiah, chapter twenty, and verses eight and nine.

There we read the words of Jeremiah, when he says:

Jeremiah 20:8-9 ESV

8 For whenever I speak, I cry out, I shout, “Violence and destruction!” For the word of the Lord has become for me a reproach and derision all day long. 9 If I say, “I will not mention him, or speak any more in his name,” there is in my heart as it were a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I am weary with holding it in, and I cannot.

Here, we see a great dilemma that Jeremiah the prophet was facing. He had been called and commissioned by God to speak His word, to utter the prophecies that He had given to him to the people that he was commissioned to give those prophecies to. But the content of those prophecies was not favorable or enjoyable content.

Rather than being favorable or enjoyable, Jeremiah says that the contents of the prophecies that he’s received have been “violence and destruction” for those he has uttered the prophecies to. And because this is the content in these prophecies, Jeremiah says that he is reproached and derided all day long by those he prophesies to.

And because this was the case, his initial determination was to just stop. He says, “I will not mention the name of God, or speak anymore in His name.” He more or less said, “No one takes me seriously, so they’re not going to believe me anyway. And any kind of response that I do receive is one that results in my persecution; so, I’m just going to stop now while I’m ahead.”

But when he done that, he said that the word of God within him, bound up, not being relayed to those whom God had commanded him to relay it to became to him like a fire shut up within his bones. It was wearisome for him to not speak the word of God, and he could not hold it in any longer.

Though his ministry cost him much persecution, he knew that he had to say what God commanded him to say, for not saying it was much worse than the reproach that he bore because of it.

There really is something to that. There really is something to being led by God to say something or do something, knowing what the consequences will be if you say or do what He has called you to do and thus being apprehensive to saying or doing it, yet knowing deep within you that you have to say it or do it, and thus doing so.

What we see in our reading for today is Cyrus receiving a charge from God, and because, as we said in our sermon from last week, this was in the first year of the reign of Cyrus over Persia, he too knew that he could not contain and suppress the charge that God had given him.

In our reading from last week, we read the historical and theological background that surrounded the proclamation that Cyrus was about to make. In our reading for this week, we will look at the specific contentsof that same proclamation.

We will go ahead and take a look first at the first half of verse two here in our reading, which says:

Ezra 1:2a ESV

2a “Thus says Cyrus king of Persia: The Lord, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth,

So again, we know that it is Cyrus, the most powerful man in the most powerful kingdom on earth at that time who made the proclamation and is thus speaking here. And being the most powerful man in the most powerful kingdom, it would probably be safe to say that Cyrus was undisputably the most powerful man on earth at that time.

And what is remarkable is that we see this pagan, most powerful king saying, “The Lord, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth”. To say that you have been given something indicates that without that something being voluntarily handed over, you would not have what you have.

Now, Cyrus speaks an important theological truth here. It is most certain that the God of heaven and earth controls and owns all things, all kingdoms, and therefore, the reason why those who reign over kingdoms do in fact reign over them is because God has given them authority over those kingdoms.

So, like I said, this is certainly a theologically accurate statement. But how theologically sincere Cyrus is, is likely a much different story.

That Cyrus attributes his success to the acting and governing of the God of heaven and earth likely indicates one of two things, if not both things.

As we’ve said, Cyrus was a pagan king. He worshipped a plethora of gods. And so, the first thing that this declaration of the king may indicate is that he worships the Lord as the chief God along with the additional gods that he worships. But of course, that’s not real worship.

Or, it could also be that in speaking to the Jewish community, he places special emphasis on their God so that what he says here may be better communicated to them.

But as was said, at any rate, what the king does recognize here is that his success is owing only to the sovereign ordination of this God, as the God of heaven and earth has been pleased to give these kingdoms to Cyrus so that he may have a vast empire.

Then, as we continue on to the second half of this verse, we see in connection with God giving Cyrus the kingdoms of the earth, that:

Ezra 1:2b ESV

he has charged me to build him a house at Jerusalem, which is in Judah.

So, the first thing that we see here is that Cyrus acknowledges that God has “charged” him to do something. To receive a charge means to be given a command to do something.

Now, how Cyrus had received this charge from God is not fully known, but as we said in our sermon from last week, it is believed by many that by this point, Daniel had shown Cyrus what had been prophesied concerning him, specifically in Isaiah 44:28 which speaks of Cyrus by name orchestrating the rebuilding of God’s temple in Jerusalem.

As Cyrus recognizes that God has given him the kingdoms of the earth, he knows that he must obey this same God’s scriptural command. A command that mentions Cyrus by name no less.

So, here we see Cyrus declaring that God has given him authority over the kingdoms of the world and one of the purposes of God giving Cyrus this authority is so that he can orchestrate the rebuilding of the Jerusalem temple.

And so, having said this, the king then goes on to say in verse three:

Ezra 1:3 ESV

3 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.

The first thing that we notice here is that Cyrus addresses “whoever is among you of all God’s people”. Who exactly is the king speaking to here?

Of course, we would naturally say those of Judah and Benjamin who had been carried into exile many years prior to this. But we need to remember that it wasn’t just Judah and Benjamin that had been exiled, because well over one hundred years before Judah and Benjamin were carried into exile did a great many of those of the northern ten tribes of Israel also face exile from their homeland when they had been conquered by Assyria. These too had found themselves scattered throughout the vast Persian Empire, and so Cyrus addresses them as well.

And to this vast number of people, exiles from the Kingdoms of Judah and Israel Cyrus offered a blessing by saying to them, “May his God be with him”. In saying this, what the king was expressing was his earnest desire for the God of heaven and earth to carry them, to bless them throughout the fulfilling of this proclamation.

And this proclamation tells this vast people that they may, if they so wish, because they were not required to do so, but if they wish to leave where they are currently living in the various parts of the empire to go up, that is, up in elevation, to Jerusalem so that they may actively “rebuild the house of the Lord”, the temple of the same God Who charged the king.

And to help encourage those he addresses to undertake this task, the king offers assistance. We read of this in verse four, the last verse of this reading, where we read the king saying,

Ezra 1:4 ESV

4 And let each survivor, in whatever place he sojourns, be assisted by the men of his place with silver and gold, with goods and with beasts, besides freewill offerings for the house of God that is in Jerusalem.”

So, here the king declares that anyone of this people who resides in any part of his empire should be assisted by the local heathen populace. This reminds us of how many centuries before, the people of Israel were assisted by the Egyptian populace when they first made their exile from that land of harsh bondage.

Indeed, what this suggests is that it should not be that any who seek to go to Jerusalem should be hindered from going for any reason whatsoever.

It could be that they were impoverished and thus had no wealth, but the king commands the populace to freely give them silver and gold. It could be that they have nothing to sustain them on their journey, but the king commands the populace to provide them with goods. It could be that they have no way of transporting these goods, but the king commands the populace to provide them with beasts of burden so that they may transport their goods and their homes to Jerusalem.

Indeed, the populace, by order of the king, were to do everything that they could to ensure that every one of this people who wanted to go to Jerusalem was indeed able to go.

And not only able to go, but also able to worship. We read that the king commanded that the heathen populace give the aforementioned items to the people “besides freewill offerings for the house of God that is in Jerusalem”.

What a mighty God we serve! In His hands are the hearts of kings. And they are as streams of water in His hands, He turns their hearts in whatever way He wills to turn them.

The world around us rages, the heathen despise and rise up against their Creator, they blaspheme God, they seek to silence His people, and while things grow from bad to worse, their hearts are in His hands! They despise God, yet as the second Psalm says, God laughs at their rebellion as He uses their wicked desires and actions to accomplish His own purpose. They do nothing that God has not already ordained to take place.

Do you think that when Cyrus set out to conquer and create a vast empire that he thought to himself, “I do God’s work!”? Of course not. But at the beginning of the forty-fifth chapter of the book of Isaiah, God says that He had anointed Cyrus and grasped his right hand. This means that God had empowered Cyrus and caused him to be successful.

And He says further that He grasped the right hand of Cyrus, He empowered him in order “to subdue nations before him and to loose the belts of kings, to open doors before him that the gates may not be closed”.

Cyrus, being a pagan king, was not a God-fearing man. And because he was not a God-fearing man, because he was in fact a paganshows that he was an enemy of God. But God empowered His enemy so that through His enemy, His will would be accomplished.

O little flock! Fear not! It is that God Who has you firmly in His grasp. He will accomplish His good pleasure in you as well, and that good pleasure is to keep you secure that you may be finally delivered to Him in glory.

Revere and worship Him!

Amen?