Kings of kings

Ezra 1:7-11 ESV

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. 8 Cyrus king of Persia brought these out in the charge of Mithredath the treasurer, who counted them out to Sheshbazzar the prince of Judah. 9 And this was the number of them: 30 basins of gold, 1,000 basins of silver, 29 censers, 10 30 bowls of gold, 410 bowls of silver, and 1,000 other vessels; 11 all the vessels of gold and of silver were 5,400. All these did Sheshbazzar bring up, when the exiles were brought up from Babylonia to Jerusalem.

Everything that is done is done with a purpose. It may not always be done with a good purpose when it comes to the one who is actively doing, but it is always done with a purpose, nonetheless. But even though that’s the case, there are still times when it seems as though what I am doing serves no purpose, or is done without any real desire, or clear motives or intentions.

For example, you may have a daily routine, and your daily routine may seem so routine that it seems like you are on autopilot as you perform it. Maybe you wake up in the morning, start the pot of coffee, take the dog out to go potty, come back inside and take a shower, get dressed, go back to your now finished pot of coffee, pour a cup, sit down at the table, grab the newspaper, and drink your coffee while you read the paper.

You don’t know why you do that every day, but you still do it every single day. But though you do your daily ritual and routine for seemingly no purpose or no reason, you still do indeed have a reason for doing what you do every day; it might just be that you enjoy going through your everyday routine, but even that is still a reason, a motive for doing what you do. There is nothing that we do, that we do without purpose or reason.

But like I said, our motive for doing certain things isn’t always a good motive with good intentions. For example, it may be my desire to gain some kind of an advantage over you and so, I reason that in order for me to gain that advantage over you, I need to hurt you in some way. That is an unfortunate consequence of our radically fallen nature.

But though you and I don’t always have a good purpose or a good reason for doing what we would, God, on the other hand, always does. God’s purpose is always a good purpose.

And one of the absolutely amazing aspects of God’s ever-good purpose is how He intervenes and uses our bad motives and determinations to serve and carry out His own good purpose. So, I may have bad motives and intentions in doing something, but my bad intentions don’t win the day, for God is faithful to intervene and use even my bad intentions to serve His good purpose. So, it is not me, but He Who always wins. And in so doing, He is always glorified.

As we end our series of messages today from the first chapter of the book of Ezra and we consider the entire Israeli exile in Babylon and return to Jerusalem, we see that there were some bad motives and intentions that were involved in many aspects of it all. But though that was the case, God’s good purpose in it all shone forth as He is supremely glorified.

The kings that had been involved in the conquests of Israel, then Judah, and eventually Jerusalem were kings that most certainly were without godly motives behind their actions.

For example, the northern kingdom of Israel was conquered and carried into exile many years before the southern kingdom of Judah was, being conquered by Assyria. And during the twelve-year conquest of Israel, there were two different reigns by two different kings in Assyria. The first went by the name, Tiglath-pileser and the second was his son, Shalmaneser.

These were men whose only motives were wealth and power. But though that were the case, we read of God’s purpose behind the conquest of Israel and their exile in the book of First Chronicles, chapter five, verses twenty-five and twenty-six, which read:

1 Chronicles 5:25-26a ESV

25 But they broke faith with the God of their fathers, and whored after the gods of the peoples of the land, whom God had destroyed before them. 26a So the God of Israel stirred up the spirit of Pul king of Assyria, the spirit of Tiglath-pileser king of Assyria, and he took them into exile,

Something that should stick out to us here is when we read that the God of Israel had stirred up the spirit of the king of Assyria.

That should sound familiar because throughout this series, we have spoken of how God had stirred up the spirit of Cyrus to issue the proclamation for the people of God to go to Jerusalem to rebuild the temple of God, and also because we read of how God had stirred up the spirits of the Jews who made the trek to Jerusalem, and how God stirred up the Jews who remained in Persia and the resident Persian heathens to give the people of God plenty of sustenance and materials to make their way to Jerusalem and rebuild the temple.

And what the chronicler says God stirred the king of Assyria to do was to conquer Israel so that she may be punished for her great sins, and also so that she may be carried into exile. So, while it was the king of Assyria’s desire to obtain wealth and power, God used that desire of the king to bring about His own purposes, unbeknownst to the king of course.

But of course, we are more well-acquainted with the Babylonian conquest of Judah, led by King Nebuchadnezzar.

Nebuchadnezzar, we know, was not a godly king. We know that later in his life he became humbled by God and declared God’s supremacy, but I don’t think that we could ever classify Nebuchadnezzar as a saved man. This is especially true early in Nebuchadnezzar’s reign. As it was with the king of Assyria, the only motivation that Nebuchadnezzar had was wealth and power. Thus, serving God’s purposes was definitely not on his radar.

But though this is the case, look at how God speaks of Nebuchadnezzar in the prophecy of Jeremiah, chapter twenty-seven, verse six, which reads:

Jeremiah 27:6a ESV

6a Now I have given all these lands into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, my servant,

So, Nebuchadnezzar, who has no intention to serve God is nonetheless identified by God as His servant, showing how God is using this unwilling king to serve and carry out His own purposes. Again, this shows how God’s plan and purpose always reigns supreme.

So again, we see how God intervenes and uses a man’s bad intentions to serve His own good, sovereign purpose. And thus, we always see that God is King over all, even over the most powerful men in the world.

In our reading for today, we see another example of this indisputable fact. We read in verses seven and eight:

Ezra 1:7-8 ESV

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. 8 Cyrus king of Persia brought these out in the charge of Mithredath the treasurer, who counted them out to Sheshbazzar the prince of Judah.

In ancient civilization, whenever a king would conquer a kingdom, it was customary for the king to take the idols that the kingdom which he conquered worshipped and then place those idols in the temple of the gods that he worshipped in order to show that his gods were superior to the gods of the kingdom which he conquered. And in saying that their gods were superior, they were also saying that the gods of the conquered nation were subservient to their gods.

Well, the God of Israel strictly prohibits being worshipped through idols or images and so, there were no idols or images in the temple of the Lord in Jerusalem, and so, Nebuchadnezzar used the temple vessels; the basins, the bowls, the censers, and other items used for sacred service as a substitute, placing them in the temple of his gods, suggesting that his gods had defeated the God of Israel.

But though it would seem as though the God of Israel had been defeated, the reality was that it was the Lord Himself Who had orchestrated Nebuchadnezzar’s victory, and it was the Lord Himself Who had allowed the vessels in the temple to be carried off and placed in the idolatrous temple in Babylon so that it would be all the more miraculous when He brought them out of that same idolatrous temple.

We know that this is the case, for we read again in the prophecy of Jeremiah, chapter twenty-seven, verse twenty-two:

Jeremiah 27:22 ESV

22 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.”

This was in reference to these temple vessels that Nebuchadnezzar had carried off and placed in his own idolatrous temple. But as God promises there, though they be carried off, He will bring them back out of that idolatrous temple and bring them back to Jerusalem, revealing His superiority over the “gods” of Babylon.

And again, we read here in Ezra, chapter one, verse seven, that Cyrus, another king who has no intention of serving the Lord had these very same vessels brought out of the idolatrous temple, and then in verse eight, we see him having them handed over to one named, “Sheshbazzar”, identified as “the prince of Judah”.

Calling this Sheshbazzar the “prince of Judah” does not suggest that he was of a political or royal leader of any kind, but instead, it suggests that he possessed authority. Thus, in calling Sheshbazzar the “prince of Judah” what the author communicates is the fact that he was indeed the one who had led this first group of Israelis to Jerusalem.

And if you look to the detailed list of items and the numbers associated with those items in verses nine through eleven, you will see the vast amount of wealth that is effectually transferred from Cyrus, the king of Persia, to the God and King over heaven and earth.

Here we see the vast display of the superiority of the God of heaven and earth over the most powerful man on earth, Cyrus the Great, king of Persia.

We see this as we find in this one of the chief reasons why God had allowed these vessels to be removed from the temple in Jerusalem and placed in the idolatrous Babylonian temple, and that is to be supremely glorified as He powerfully caused it to be transferred back to Him.

And thus, in allowing the vessels to be removed from the Jerusalem temple and placed in the Babylonian temple, God accomplished twin purposes.

He first punished His people in Judah by allowing the temple to be ransacked, thus removing His symbolic presence from the land. And second, in having Cyrus bring these same vessels out of the same temple that Nebuchadnezzar had brought them into, His awesome, powerful nature was put on display.

This showed the people returning to Jerusalem more than ever that their God was a God to be feared. And not only that, but in Cyrus, that most powerful monarch on earth humbly submitting to the command of the most high God showed everyone on earth, far and wide, that the God of Israel is indeed the God of heaven and earth, a God to be feared, a God Whose will is always accomplished, indeed the God over all gods.

Indeed, my friends, what this communicates to us today is that this God, the God Who has chosen us as His own people, is a God to be greatly feared. A God Who holds our times in His very hands. A God to be worshipped.

The “god” of much modern theology is a god who really, really wants things to happen but is so often frustrated because people just won’t cooperate with him, a god who wouldn’t dare intervene in history without our permission. But that’s not the God of the Bible. That is just the product of man’s perverse imagination.

No, beloved friends, the God of the Bible is a God to be feared, to be loved and adored, but most of all, a God to be served and worshipped by us for eternity.

That my friends, is the God of the Bible! That my friends, is our God!

Amen?