A Promise Keeping God

Introduction - Open to Ezra 1

Introduce the series “Return, the Book of Ezra”

Circumstances that have led up to this

The book of Ezra is about the people of Israel returning from exile to Babylon. Really, it is about people facing the consequences of sin, and God rescuing them. We could start in the Garden, God telling Adam and Eve that they had rule of the garden, could do anything they they want, except eat from that one tree. You know how the story goes. They ate from that tree and we have been living in the Genesis 3, sin filled world ever since. The effect of which you can see still today on your TV screens as you watch the news. Fast forward to Abraham. God promised that a great nation would come through Abraham that would bless the entire world. Promising this to a man with no children and who is way too old to be having children. It happens! A great nation came, but what we see it that this great nation gets enslaved in Egypt. God, in his providential way, raises up Moses to lead the nation of Israel out of slavery. Then we see God do some amazing things and his people are freed from slavery, told to leave and they even plunder the Egyptians as they leave. Eventually, the Israelites make it to the promise land. God tells them, as long as you obey my commands, as long as you worship me, you will live in this land flowing with milk and honey. I will let you guess if they were able to live in obedience. I guess they had about as much a chance as we have to live sin free this week.

The people of Israel did not follow God. Sure they did for a little while. We can relate to following God, then following him from a little farther away. The problem came when the people of Israel began to worship other gods. Not that the other sins are not important. But God told them in the first commandment that he gave them, Exodus 20:2-3

Exodus 20:2–3 (CSB)

2 I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the place of slavery.

3 Do not have other gods besides me.

Now this first command is not something that is easily misunderstood. This is who God is, and you are not to have other gods besides him. This means that we are not to worship anything else. Not just that we are not replace God with something else, but that we are not to worship anything along with God. The Israelites did. They split into two different kingdoms, Israel to the north and Judah to the south. Both were over taken after many generations and exiled from the land that God had given them. God told them that it would happen when they moved into the land. He told them that it was coming while they worshipped other gods.

The Babylonians came in and destroyed the temple that Solomon had built to worship the Lord. Not only did he destroy the temple, take all the people captive, he also took all of the items that the Israelites had set aside to work in the temple. Nebuchadnezzar took all of these items from the temple and placed them in a temple that he had built to other gods. How humiliating is that? Take your land, destroy the place you worship, where God dwelled, and take the items you worship with and use them to worship another. This is what sin does, it destroys.

“But God…” I love those words in scripture. Maybe it does not say it here, but that is what is happening. See in the same prophets that told the people of Israel that they would be sent out, exiled from the promise land, God told them that he would bring them back. That he would restore them to himself. That is partially what is taking place in the book of Ezra. I say partially because as we will see in the later part of the book, it is not quite the same. God does not come back and dwell in the temple like he did when Solomon had it built. God was up to something much bigger and as we go through the book, we might see what that is.

Ezra 1:1–11 (CSB)

1 In the first year of King Cyrus of Persia, in order to fulfill the word of the Lord spoken through Jeremiah, the Lord roused the spirit of King Cyrus to issue a proclamation throughout his entire kingdom and to put it in writing:

2 This is what King Cyrus of Persia says: “The Lord, the God of the heavens, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth and has appointed me to build him a house at Jerusalem in Judah.

3 Any of his people among you, may his God be with him, and may he go to Jerusalem in Judah and build the house of the Lord, the God of Israel, the God who is in Jerusalem.

4 Let every survivor, wherever he resides, be assisted by the men of that region with silver, gold, goods, and livestock, along with a freewill offering for the house of God in Jerusalem.”

5 So the family heads of Judah and Benjamin, along with the priests and Levites—everyone whose spirit God had roused—prepared to go up and rebuild the Lord’s house in Jerusalem.

6 All their neighbors supported them with silver articles, gold, goods, livestock, and valuables, in addition to all that was given as a freewill offering.

7 King Cyrus also brought out the articles of the Lord’s house that Nebuchadnezzar had taken from Jerusalem and had placed in the house of his gods.

8 King Cyrus of Persia had them brought out under the supervision of Mithredath the treasurer, who counted them out to Sheshbazzar the prince of Judah.

9 This was the inventory: 30 gold basins, 1,000 silver basins, 29 silver knives,

10 30 gold bowls, 410 various silver bowls, and 1,000 other articles.

11 The gold and silver articles totaled 5,400. Sheshbazzar brought all of them when the exiles went up from Babylon to Jerusalem.

As we look at the Jewish people returning to Jerusalem to rebuild the temple, we need to know this; Our Lord is a promise making and promise keeping God. The promise made about the consequences of sin will come to pass, but so is a way to healing and restoration.

A Rousing Return

God will fulfill his word

The prophets were right when they said they would exiled. I wonder how many people were thinking about that. Thinking to themselves, “They told us this would happen. Why didn’t we listen to them?” That is how I envision people after my sermons or counsel and they still sin or make bad decisions. “This is what Doug preached about? Doug told me this would happen. Why don’t I listen to Doug more?” Okay, maybe that does not actually happen. But there had to be some that were not surprised to see the exile come. My curiosity is how long before they stopped believing that God would bring them back?

The prophets were right when they said they would return. Sometimes you can hear a promise from God for so long that you stop believing in that promise. They were exiled for seventy years. I am sure, at some point, even the most religious person would begin to have doubts about if they were ever going back. But then comes the fall of Babylon and King Cyrus of Persia is in charge.

Ezra 1:1–5 (CSB)

1 In the first year of King Cyrus of Persia, in order to fulfill the word of the Lord spoken through Jeremiah, the Lord roused the spirit of King Cyrus to issue a proclamation throughout his entire kingdom and to put it in writing:

2 This is what King Cyrus of Persia says: “The Lord, the God of the heavens, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth and has appointed me to build him a house at Jerusalem in Judah.

3 Any of his people among you, may his God be with him, and may he go to Jerusalem in Judah and build the house of the Lord, the God of Israel, the God who is in Jerusalem.

4 Let every survivor, wherever he resides, be assisted by the men of that region with silver, gold, goods, and livestock, along with a freewill offering for the house of God in Jerusalem.”

5 So the family heads of Judah and Benjamin, along with the priests and Levites—everyone whose spirit God had roused—prepared to go up and rebuild the Lord’s house in Jerusalem.

The Lord initiated the fulfilment of the promise. Sometimes we like to give credit for things to people that they do not belong. We like to blame Satan for the consequences of our sin. We like to blame others for our bad choices. I mean, I blame my children for the gray hairs in my goatee. I am convinced that it has nothing to do with me getting older. But if we look at our text, we can see that it is not Cyrus that did this. Maybe better said, Cyrus did not do this on his own. This was not even his idea.

The Lord roused Cyrus to do these things. The word arouse in our text means to awaken or arise. It is as if the writer is telling us that God opened the eyes of King Cyrus to what needed to happen. With that being the case, that it is God who initiated this whole thing, then we must see that God is the one who gets credit. But like I said, this is what God told the people of Israel that he was going to do.

Spoken through Jeremiah

Jeremiah 29:10 (CSB)

10 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.

told Cyrus to send the Jews back and build a temple

God roused the neighbors as well. See God did not simply say to the king, “Let my people go.” He opened the kings eyes to what needed to happen and he opened the eyes of those around to what part they needed to play. We do not know if the people in verse 4 are also Jews or if they are gentile neighbors. If they are Jews, it makes a little sense to me that they would want to participate in this return, but if they had the resources like this then they might be hesitant to return. Things appear to be going pretty well for them.

I tend to lean to the side of it being Gentile neighbors that were giving them things. When the jews left Egypt, God had done so much through Moses and the plagues, that the people of Egypt were paying them to leave. I am not saying that they were paying them to leave this time, but God made a way for the people of Isreal to leave as well as finance the trip and the rebuilding of the temple in Jerusalem. God will do some crazy things like this every once in a while. While on Sabbatical, Heather and I had our trip to Boston paid for. Maybe not entirely, I think that we had to pay for some meals.

God roused the Jews to leave. We can get pretty comfortable in our place of punishment. We get to those places and they hurt. They are uncomfortable. But after we have been carrying that baggage for a little while and now we do not even notice the weight of the sin anymore. It is what it is. It has kind of grown on us. Maybe this was not the promise land. They did deserve to be exiled to this place. Maybe they could just stay there.

But some of the Jews began to prepare to leave. You might be thinking, why do they need to prepare? If the king says that they can go, and God is making a way, why do they need to prepare? They had been there 70 years. They did not have quite the stuff we do, but imagine trying to get ready to move when you have been someplace 70 years. They were going to build the temple. They need supplies, they needed tools they needed all kinds of things. When my family went to Colorado for a week we had the back of the car so packed down that I thought the back fenders were going to rub on the tires. They had been there for seventy years.

It is awesome to me to see that God is the one initiating all of this. He began with the King, then the neighbors and the the Jewish people themselves. He has done the same for you and I. The bible says that nobody comes to the Lord on their own, according to John 6:44. I can testify to that truth. I was not looking for God when he came rushing into my life. But praise God that he did!

John 6:44 (CSB)

44 No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up on the last day.

A Profitable Pilgrimage

I wonder what the prayers of the Jewish people were like? I wonder if some quit praying at all. Maybe some were praying for a time when they could go back. I am sure there were some, who just wanted to live in the land again. They were not asking for things above and beyond. Maybe there were a few who were praying for the Lord to “provide a way.” But I cannot imagine that anyone thought that the Lord would do this! We looked at the decree that Cyrus sent out, and talked about how the Lord roused the neighbors to give to those who would be going back. But the Jews got way more then just some gas money.

Ezra 1:6–11 (CSB)

6 All their neighbors supported them with silver articles, gold, goods, livestock, and valuables, in addition to all that was given as a freewill offering.

7 King Cyrus also brought out the articles of the Lord’s house that Nebuchadnezzar had taken from Jerusalem and had placed in the house of his gods.

8 King Cyrus of Persia had them brought out under the supervision of Mithredath the treasurer, who counted them out to Sheshbazzar the prince of Judah.

9 This was the inventory: 30 gold basins, 1,000 silver basins, 29 silver knives,

10 30 gold bowls, 410 various silver bowls, and 1,000 other articles.

11 The gold and silver articles totaled 5,400. Sheshbazzar brought all of them when the exiles went up from Babylon to Jerusalem.

A financial blessing is such a boost. I cannot explain how much confidence that it gives you when you feel as if you are supposed to do something, you do not know how you are supposed to do it, then God provides a way for it to happen. There are a lot of Pastors who have preached on this passage when a church is starting a building project. If they need to add on to the church and they are trying to get financial support from the church body or maybe just support from the body to proceed and they will use this text to show that God will provide a way.

We use that term a lot, “The Lord will provide.” I think that we miss sometimes that opportunities that he has given us because he does not provide the way that we think that he should. I mean, I cannot imagine that there were Jews sitting around looking at their neighbors cattle and thinking to themselves, “That one will be great when we take it back to Jerusalem with us.” Please do not misunderstand me. I am not saying the they should have been looking at their neighbors possessions like that. I am just saying that we seem to limit God to the ways that we are limited. God give me this job or this deal so that I can make this money. God give me this raise or set the market prices at this point so I can do… God is not limited by your imagination. If he has called you, me or the church as whole to do anything, he will provide a way and it will be in ways that are beyond what you will imagine. Just ask some of the folks who were around at the beginning of Faith Fellowship Church. Some how when they needed money, they would receive money. When they were building they would receive money from people who did not live or go to church here so that they could continue to build.

God provided! We cannot miss out on the blessings of what God is doing because he is not doing it in the way that we thought it should be done.

There was much more that a financial blessing that took place. A spiritual blessing also came to those returning to Jerusalem. In verse 7, King Cyrus released all of the items from the temple that King Nebuchadnezzar had taken. Yes, if you look at all of that stuff, I am sure that there was very valuable. But I cannot help but think that the items that they used to worship the Lord with going back with them only boosted their confidence in what the Lord was doing. You see there were not only worldly things that were going back with them. But items from the temple, the very place that the Lord dwelled were going back as well. I am sure that this led them to believe that the Lord was restoring all things.

The Lord always provides a way. Who knows what all the Lord has in store for us in the future. The Lord has provided for me every time that he has called me to do something. But, can we move from earthly thinking to eternity. The Lord has called me to be his child, and he has made a way for that to happen. I was not, and cannot accomplish this on my own. The Lord has called us to be righteous and there is no amount of good works that we can do that will make that happen. But God who is rich in mercy because of the great love that he has for us made us alive in Christ according to Ephesians 2:4-5. Through his death on the cross, we who were unrighteous can stand before God in the righteousness of Christ Jesus.

Ephesians 2:4–5 (CSB)

4 But God, who is rich in mercy, because of his great love that he had for us,

5 made us alive with Christ even though we were dead in trespasses. You are saved by grace!

A Confirmed Commitment

God’s fulfilled promises of the past should give us hope and peace for the future. So as I write this there is chaos just about everywhere. Afghanistan is a mess, with a bomb going off yesterday and killing 13 U.S Servicemen. I have been angry about the way that the U.S. government is handling things. I get upset at the way that their political decisions are putting other peoples lives in danger. I am not only talking about our men and women of the Armed Forces. In 2009, the Afghanistan government made a law that said your religious beliefs had to be put on your passport. Now, the political decisions of this country, the advancement of a terrorist organization in that country has put thousands of believers life in jeopardy. You see the old government had that list of believers. Now, the Taliban has that list and their version of Islam says that they should kill such people. All of this made me angry this week. It is easy to see these things, and I believe that they should make us angry, but it is easy to begin to lose hope that God is in control. That in the end the evil one will be thrown into the lake of fire forever.

Ezra 2:1 (CSB)

1 These now are the people of the province who came from those captive exiles King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon had deported to Babylon. They returned to Jerusalem and Judah, each to his own town.

Everybody loves to go over the lists of people in the Bible. I mean who does not love the book of Numbers. Reading through the lists of families. Maybe I misunderstood when I asked somebody about reading through the Bible and they told me that they did not make it through Numbers. The Jewish people were exiled and are now returning to the promise land. Once God put them on the move, he made another list. You do realize that God does not need these lists. God is omniscient. He knows everything. He knows everything eternity past and also knows everything in the eternity future as well. These lists are for those who came after this group of Israelites. This list is a memorial of sorts. This will be a constant reminder of what God has done. I am sure generations after this looked back at this list to look for Great Grandpa, when he walked with the rest of the Israelites to rebuild the temple. What a blessing!

This should be a blessing to us. Look how God walked with his people. How yes, there was sin, and he exiled them from the land, but he made a way. It is not just a group of people went back, but these people. Here is their names, this is who they were. When we say that God makes a way for his people, it is not just a collective, but personal as well.

I conclude with this thought. Towards the end of chapter two, verse 68, the heads of the families gave an offering themselves to build the temple.

Ezra 2:68 (CSB)

68 After they arrived at the Lord’s house in Jerusalem, some of the family heads gave freewill offerings for the house of God in order to have it rebuilt on its original site.

This is worship. The exiled people come home. The people who thought that they would never see the temple again, have returned. They worship the Lord through giving to have the temple rebuilt. They have seen the promise of God fulfilled! Jeremiah 29:11.

Jeremiah 29:11 (CSB)

11 For I know the plans I have for you”—this is the Lord’s declaration—“plans for your well-being, not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.

I know that this promise in Jeremiah is for those who have been exiled from Israel. But there is truth there for us as well. God knows the plans that he has for us. His desire is for you to spend eternity with him. To give you a hope even in these dark times. Knowing that one day, there will be a great exodus when the Lord Jesus returns and those whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of life will be called up to be with him. I look forward to that day. Come Lord Jesus!