God Keeps His Word

It is January 6. How are you doing on your resolutions?

I’m not going to ask you to raise your hands, but are you still on track, or have you already been thrown off?

If this week hasn’t gone well for you, I am not trying to discourage you or point you out.

Change is hard, and I don’t want to downplay that.

However, could we make the case that keeping our resolutions at times is a matter of integrity?

I heard someone recently talking about the fact that they make artificial deadlines for projects so they don’t procrastinate. He put it in the framework of keeping his word to himself.

If I am honest, I am not always the best at that. I strive to keep my word to others, but when I promise myself that I am not going to eat like that ever again or that I am going to make it a priority to get up or have the dishes done before bed or whatever it may bed, I find myself breaking those promises to myself more often than I would like to admit.

That’s why I am so glad that the God we serve isn’t like me at all.

In fact, what we will see this morning as we look at God’s Word together is this key truth: God always keeps his word, and often in impossible ways.

We are going to see this as we begin a study through the Old Testament book of Ezra.

Ezra is one that we don’t typically spend a lot of time in, and we are going to have to get a handle on some of the story going on around us.

It is easy to get lost in the names of the kings and empires and genealogies and things, but we are going to draw what lessons we can from each of these unique situations.

As we pull all these threads together, we will see an amazing account of God keeping his word to his people time and time again. Their first response to God keeping his word is worship, so my prayer through our walk through Ezra is that God will help you learn more about how he works, which will lead you to put a greater emphasis on worshiping him in holiness.

This morning, we are going to attempt to tackle the first two chapters. It isn’t as daunting as it seems, because you may notice a long list of names in chapter 2. We won’t cover each of those names this morning, although they are important for various reasons.

However, our main point this morning is to see that God keeps his word, and often in impossible ways. We are going to see that this morning in three different ways God moved when he was bringing his people back to Jerusalem to rebuild the temple.

Before you say this is ancient history and tune out, let me remind you that the way God worked in the past teaches us about how he is working now.

In fact, I read this quote recently:

“What God has done in the past is a model and a promise of what he will continue to do in the future, although he is too creative to do the same thing the same way twice.” (James Allman)

Our goal in looking at Ezra is to see that model, rest in his promise, and look forward to what God is going to do.

Let’s set the stage:

Way back in the book of Genesis, God called a man named Abraham to himself. Abraham’s descendants were going to be God’s special people on earth, and so God moved Abraham to a special area that would one day belong to his descendants.

Generations later, a famine forced Abraham’s family to move down to Egypt, where they would stay for over 400 years.

God led them back to the Promised Land under a man named Moses in something we refer to as “the Exodus”.

In the course of time, they took possession of the land God promised and set up Jerusalem as their capital.

God eventually told them to build a temple to him in Jerusalem, so the city of Jerusalem was the political and spiritual center for the nation of Israel.

However, during all this time, the Israelites kept turning their backs on God and worshiping other Gods.

Eventually, God allowed the Babylonians to destroy Jerusalem, obliterate the temple, and carry the people off to captivity in Babylon.

Before he did, though, God made promises through several prophets that one day, he would bring his people back to Jerusalem to worship him:

Jeremiah 29:10 CSB

For this is what the Lord says: “When seventy years for Babylon are complete, I will attend to you and will confirm my promise concerning you to restore you to this place.

As we open the book of Ezra, it has now been 70 years since they were carried into captivity.

The Babylonian Empire has been overthrown, and now a new king, Cyrus of Persia, has come to power.

God is about to keep his word, bringing his people back, and they are going to begin the process of rebuilding the temple and reestablishing the worship God called them to.

As we see how God does this, I want you to think of what God has promised to do in your life.

In case you don’t really know what God has promised, look in your bulletin for the list of Promise to the Believer. This is a list of 41 promises God has made to those who follow Christ.

Notice that a Rolls Royce, perfect health, and a high-powered job are not on that list anywhere. Those aren’t the things God has promised us. In fact, his promises to us are much, much greater than that.

When you look at that list, though, there may be some things you read and go, “Yeah, right.”

When those seem like impossible promises, I want you to think back to Ezra. Look at what God did when he brought them back to himself, and know that he keeps his word.

The first impossible thing God did in bringing back his people was...

1) God can change the hearts of kings.

Read with me.

The nation had been carried off to captivity.

When that happened, the victor would destroy everything they could that symbolized your nation because they wanted to absorb you into their culture. That way, you wouldn’t be able to get people together for a revolt.

God allowed the Babylonians to completely and utterly destroy Jerusalem in a horrific fashion.

In those days, your god wasn’t just something you did. If my army beat your army, that meant my god was better than your god.

One of the first things I would do is defile your temple to prove just how powerless your god actually was.

That’s what happened when Jerusalem was destroyed.

2 Chronicles 36:17–19 CSB

So he brought up against them the king of the Chaldeans, who killed their fit young men with the sword in the house of their sanctuary. He had no pity on young men or young women, elderly or aged; he handed them all over to him. He took everything to Babylon—all the articles of God’s temple, large and small, the treasures of the Lord’s temple, and the treasures of the king and his officials. Then the Chaldeans burned God’s temple. They tore down Jerusalem’s wall, burned all its palaces, and destroyed all its valuable articles.

2 chronicles 36:17-

Here we are, 70 years later, and what does King Cyrus decide should happen?

That the God of Israel should have a temple again!

He allows anyone who wants to move back to Jerusalem do so, and as we will talk about more later, he tells them to take all the money they need!

Why in the world would a pagan king do that?

Because of what we saw in verse 1 - “the Lord roused the spirit of King Cyrus...”

Because even kings of powerful empires are subject to the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, who as we saw last week, is the Maker of heaven and earth!

I will be honest with you: I absolutely hate politics. I find myself reading news articles as if I was watching a train wreck: you hate to see it, but you can’t look away out of some morbid curiosity.

Did you know, though, that not a single mayor, governor, delegate, representative, senator, judge, president, or king can stop God from keeping his word?

Here’s how the prophet Isaiah described God’s relationship to rulers on earth:

Isaiah 40:23–24 CSB

He reduces princes to nothing and makes judges of the earth like a wasteland. They are barely planted, barely sown, their stem hardly takes root in the ground when he blows on them and they wither, and a whirlwind carries them away like stubble.

All God has to do is blow on any ruler in the world and they melt like a snowflake.

isaiah 40:23-34

That’s why Solomon could write:

Proverbs 21:1 CSB

A king’s heart is like channeled water in the Lord’s hand: He directs it wherever he chooses.

Isn’t that what he did here to Cyrus?

God stirred his heart, and the next thing you know, he is issuing a royal edict that God’s temple be rebuilt.

He stirred his heart, and the next thing you know, he is issuing a royal edict that God’s temple be rebuilt.

Want to kick this up a notch?

Not only did God stir up Cyrus to rebuild the temple, he knew it would happen years before.

Isaiah 44:28 CSB

who says to Cyrus, “My shepherd, he will fulfill all my pleasure” and says to Jerusalem, “She will be rebuilt,” and of the temple, “Its foundation will be laid.”

Okay, so Isaiah said that Cyrus would be the one to issue the decree. Great. What’s the big deal?

The big deal is that Isaiah said that 150 years before Cyrus would be born and come to power.

God told Isaiah that he would stir Cyrus’ heart a century and a half before it happened!

Can you tr

Can you trust, then, that this same God can keep his word in your life?

That no human power can stop him.

In fact, God can move in surprising ways to use people you would never expect to carry out his plan.

We see that in the next section as well when we see that...

2) God can move in the hearts of his people.

Read .

Notice anything interesting here?

It doesn’t say that all of God’s people, or everyone who had been carried off in captivity to Babylon prepared to go.

Instead, it says specifically that it was “everyone whose spirit God had roused...”

That’s the exact same wording we saw in verse 1 with Cyrus, isn’t it?

When it came time for God to send people back to the land, he didn’t send everyone.

We can’t know for sure why, but I would imagine that it was because of the difficulty ahead of them. The city and temple had been destroyed, and it would be a huge task to rebuild it.

It would take a unique group of people.

Not only that, but it has been 70 years! Think about your own family. I am in my hometown, but our family hasn’t been settled in this area for 70 years.

Some had probably grown complacent and comfortable in Babylon, especially since life was better now that Cyrus was in charge.

Those who stayed missed out on something, though: they missed out on the privilege of getting back to worship the way it was supposed to be.

God will fulfill every promise that he has made.

However, there will be some who get to have a unique part in what he is doing.

Although not every opportunity in the kingdom of God has your name on it, is there something that God may be inviting you to be a part of that you have been too afraid to do it?

Is that you preferring the comfort of the known Babylon instead of going out with God bravely into the unknown?

The job that these exiles had was enormous, but by trusting that the God who was calling them to it was bigger than the challenges ahead, they were able to see first-hand what God was doing to glorify himself.

God is going to keep his word, with or without you. Why not let strike out into the unknown with the God you know and see him do it?

Is money the thing that is keeping you from following what God is doing?

Let’s address that with this last way God moved to keep his word in this passage:

3) God can provide in unexpected ways.

One of the ways God worked was to move in the hearts of those around the exiles to provide what they needed for the temple and sacrifices.

In verse 4, Cyrus had encouraged people throughout the empire to support the rebuilding of the temple.

Pick back up in verse 6, and you see something that may sound familiar...

Doesn’t this sound like what we read in Exodus?

Exodus 12:35–36 CSB

The Israelites acted on Moses’s word and asked the Egyptians for silver and gold items and for clothing. And the Lord gave the people such favor with the Egyptians that they gave them what they requested. In this way they plundered the Egyptians.

God provided for this temple just like he provided for the first tabernacle: by the gifts of those who were sending his people to their land.

Isn’t that interesting? What God has done in the past is a pattern and promise...

Beyond that, Cyrus didn’t stop with encouraging people to give. He actually took items out of the royal treasury and gave them back to the Jews! Look at verses 7-8.

Verse 11 says that it totaled 5,400 gold and silver articles!

God provided through the hand of a pagan king for his temple to be rebuilt.

It didn’t stop there, though!

Fast forward with me all the way through chapter 2 to 2:68-69.

As we jump past the names, let me make this observation: this again shows us that God will keep his promises, because these were real people who really lived in the land and were carried into exile. Now, their descendants are really coming back to the land God had said they would have.

As they came back, though, we see God’s provision again in verse 68...

Not only did God provide through their neighbors and the king, God also provided through the people who came back!

This may have come out of the extra that was mentioned in verse 6. When their neighbors gave for the temple, it seems they also gave to the exiles themselves so they would have something to live off when they got back to Jerusalem.

Regardless, isn’t it interesting to see that those who had sacrificed so much to come were still willing to give sacrificially for the work to take place?

In order to keep his word, that the people would return and that the temple would be rebuilt, God moved on the heart of a pagan king to send his people and his resources back to Jerusalem. He moved on the hearts of pagan neighbors to help support the work, and he moved in the hearts of his uniquely called and qualified people to carry out the work.

If what God has done in the past is a model and a promise for us, what does that mean? That means that God will keep every promise he makes. He may do it in impossible ways, even if it means moving the heart of the king, working through neighbors who don’t know Jesus, and in sacrificial ways through his people.

Do you believe that?

Here’s where we need to respond this morning. We know for certain that God will keep the promises you have on your sheet in front of you. They are from his word, and he will keep them.

We have people like those in Ezra who testify to what God has done.

Beyond that, we have an even greater testimony of God keeping his word in an impossible way.

Those who returned here were coming back to rebuild the temple, which was a symbol of God’s presence. Itt was a great sacrifice.

However, it paled in comparison to the great sacrifice still to come. We were separated from God and exiled with no hope of coming back to him. Yet, God loved us so much that he would send his only Son, Jesus, God in the flesh. He didn’t simply send back silver and gold; he sent himself to bring us back into right relationship with God.

If God has done that for us, then can’t we trust what he will do?