Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

Continuing our study on Ezra and Nehemiah we are going to jump to .

if full of information regarding the numbers of people and offerings given for the rebuilding of the temple.

I believe has much richer content for us to see and apply to our lives.

At this point the Jews have returned to Jerusalem and are getting settled in.

The first thing we see is the sacrifice restored.

I.

The Sacrifice Restored

Follow along as I read verses 1-7

Ezra 3:1-7

In verse 1 you will see we are in the 7th month.

That is known as the month Tishri and is sacred to the Jewish culture.

On our calendars it would be between Sept and Oct.

The first day of the month it opened with the feast of trumpets.

This marked the beginning of the Jewish new year while also serving as a day to rememeber when God revealed himself on Mt.

Sinai.

It began a the 10 days of awe where the people pentint people would humble themselves and prepare for the day of atonement.

The feast of trumpets was a day that the Jews used to remember when God revealed himself on Mt.

Sinai.

It began a the 10 days of awe where the people pentint people would humble themselves and prepare for the day of atonement.

The day of atonement or Yom Kippur as it’s more commonly known today is the most sacred holy day on the Jewish calendar.

In short, Yom Kippur is the day that shows what Christ would do for the people.

Then there is the Feast of Tabernacles, shelters, or booths.

Pastor Davidson taught a great 2 week series on that a few months ago and it was extremely enlightening.

Sukkot, the Feast of Booths, commonly goes by another name, “The Season of Our Joy,” for joy predominates on this holiday more than any other.

Jewish people around the world construct sukkot (singular: sukkah), frail huts or booths that remind us of God’s provision and our dependence on Him.

Sukkot is a memorial to remind us of the building of booths during our ancestors’ wanderings in the wilderness: “The Feast of Tabernacles was an annual reminder to the people that God is the Great Shepherd who has chosen to ‘tabernacle among them,’ to protect and bless them wherever they wander.”

So this month is one that the jews would want to be able to observe as they rejoice for being back in their homeland.

With that in mind Joshua, Zerubbabel, and the priests worked together to restore the altar in order to sacrifice to the Lord.

Notice verse 3

They feared those that were around them.

But they didn’t rebuild the wall first.

They feared what would happen to them but they didn’t raise up an army.

They had fear in their hearts for what would happen to them and the first thing they took the time to do was to restore the altar and sacrfice to the Lord.

Why?

Because they knew that the way to not just survive but to live victoriously wasn’t by taking care of their enemies and their problems it was by trusting in God to take care of them.

It was by first getting themselves right with the Lord that they would be able to overcome.

Jesus had to tell Peter this same thing after he cut off a Roman soldiers ear.

God will provide, God will protect, the question is do you trust him enough to?

I mean these people didn’t even have the temple built yet.

They didn’t have the ornate structure for God constructed.

The gold, silver, and furnishings hadn’t been put in place and these people had the audacity to begin sacrificing to God...

Warren Wiersbe wrote about this

it’s not the external furnishings but what’s in the heart that concerns God the most

Wiersbe, W. W. (1997).

Be heroic (p.

21).

Colorado Springs, CO: ChariotVictor Pub.

It’s not about what we look like, it’s not about what the facilities look like, it’s about having a heart for God and a desire to see Him glorified.

Joshua, Zerubbabel, and the Levites had the sacrifice restored and then they had the Temple Rebuilt

II.

The Temple Rebuilt

Someone read verses 8-9 for us tonight

Now we are in the second month of the following year.

The people have been gathering supplies for around 7 months, much like Solomon did.

Notice the Unity that was amongst the people during this time.

Verse 1 “The people gathered as one man in Jerusalem”

Verse 9 “together”

Verse 11 “sang together” We will get to why they are singing in a moment

During this tumultuous time the Jews had put their focus back on God and are now unified in the direction they are going.

They have decided they will live for the God, trust Him with their nation, and be unified together around their faith in Him.

This so important for a church.

The gates of Hell shall not prevail against the church but the seed of discord can grow from within and break apart what God is doing.

It’s my prayer that each of us would be like Paul described in

The people are unified and rebuilding the temple.

You know they went to the site of Solomon’s temple.

I wonder what they saw.

Maybe a pillar still standing that wasn’t toppled over.

Probably some greenery that had overgrown the place that wasn’t cared for.

I bet they saw the foundation of the Temple was cracked and now unusable.

They had to answer the question David posed in Psalm 11:3

If the foundations is broke, cracked, what can the righteous do?

Any guesses?

Lay the foundation again.

That’s exactly what they were doing.

They laid the foundation and then the People rejoiced

III.

The People Rejoiced

Follow along verses 10-11

The foundation is laid, the priests dressed up, they played musical instruments, they sang praises and thanksgiving to the Lord.

The people gave a shout of praise.

It was like an old school tent revival in this place.

White hankeys were out and everything.

It was an amazing time for these Jews.

It was the first milestone in life returning to normal for their culture back in their homeland.

But not everyone rejoiced…Some were rattled by the new foundation that was laid.

Let’s look at verses 12-13

The people who had seen Solomon’s temple were weeping.

They couldn’t believe the difference between the two temples.

They saw this new foundation as something less than what Solomon had.

I can only imagine them not liking what it looked like.

They didn’t think it would be enough, they didn’t think it was right, they wanted things to be like it was in their day.

They wanted the temple they had known...

Now in Ezra we don’t see a response from God or anyone else but in Haggai we find God speaking to Zerubbabel about this.

Turn in your Bibles to

While your turning and before you read, let me give you context to Haggai

The prophet Haggai recorded his four messages to the Jewish people of Jerusalem in 520 BC, eighteen years after their return from exile in Babylon (538 BC).

seems to indicate that the prophet had seen Jerusalem before the destruction of the temple and the exile in 586 BC, meaning he was more than seventy years old by the time he delivered his prophecies.

From these facts, the picture of Haggai begins to come into focus.

He was an older man looking back on the glories of his nation, a prophet imbued with a passionate desire to see his people rise up from the ashes of exile and reclaim their rightful place as God’s light to the nations.

Here is an older man, who saw Solomon’s temple, having to write to Zerubbabel and to the people what God is saying about their response to it.