In This World You Will Have Trouble

Chapter four of Ezra is an interesting chapter that can be hard to understand because of the way that it is written. So far as we have gone through this book, we have done so in an order that makes sense to us. We saw that the Israelites were exiled in chapter one and that God roused King Cyrus to send them back to build, the neighbors to finance the trip, and the Israelites to actually go. We see them return and even have the list of who all went in chapter two. Chapter three we see the order in which they started to build and what had been accomplished. But chapter four does not go in order. We see verses one through five, then verses six through twenty-three are kind of a bracket and then verse 24 goes with verse 5. Why would the writer write this way? I believe that it is because he is writing in a thematic way, not a chronological way. If that is the case, then we must ask what is the theme of this chapter. What is the message that the writer is trying give to us.

Introduction - In this world you will have trouble

What has it taken in the past to test your faith? I mean, you believe that you are called to do something, you are faithful and you take that step to begin just as God has told you. What kind of adversity does it take to make you doubt what God has called you to do.

Unfortunately there are a lot of false teachings out there that will tell you that if you are obedient to the Lord, if you have enough faith in him that those bad things will not happen. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, to rain on your parade on a Sunday morning, but that simply is not true. You see bad things happen because we live in a world filled with sin. Like it or not, we live with the consequences of not just our own sin, but those around us as well. Even when we are being obedient to God, we will face hard times. In fact, I would argue that when we are our most obedient, we will see some of the most difficult times.

The Israelites have been exiled because of their sin, but now, because of the work of the Lord, they have made their way back into the promise land. They have begun to observe the sacrifices and obey the law. They have even gotten the foundation of the temple finished. What an exciting time. But now the real work begins. They are about to face some attacks. They will see people who only partially believe the same offer to help. They will see people using the political system to attempt to get them to stop and they will see lies and slander used against them until ultimately they are physically forced to stop.

We should expect suffering in this world. Jesus offers us peace, knowing that He has conquered the world.

PRAY!

The world will pretend to be on our side, until they are not

We have talked in the past how easy it is to believe that everyone who is around us is a Christian. But we read scriptures that say things like narrow is the road that leads to salvation and few that find it. But that doesn’t seem to add up to the things that we read that seventy-five percent of our nation claims to be Christian. Maybe it is because when we actually look into that number and start to ask some deeper questions on what people believe and how they practice what they say they believe, we see that the people who have a biblical world view, one that attempts to live in a biblical way, authority of scripture, that number shrinks to below ten percent.

Why do I bring this up? If there is seventy five percent of the people in the United States that claim to be christian and I am right that there are less than ten percent who actually have a biblical world view, then there are approximately sixty-five percent of Americans who claim to believe what we say we believe, but do not.

Ezra 4:1–5 (CSB)

1 When the enemies of Judah and Benjamin heard that the returned exiles were building a temple for the Lord, the God of Israel,

2 they approached Zerubbabel and the family heads and said to them, “Let us build with you, for we also worship your God and have been sacrificing to him since the time King Esar-haddon of Assyria brought us here.”

3 But Zerubbabel, Jeshua, and the other heads of Israel’s families answered them, “You may have no part with us in building a house for our God, since we alone will build it for the Lord, the God of Israel, as King Cyrus, the king of Persia has commanded us.”

4 Then the people who were already in the land discouraged the people of Judah and made them afraid to build.

5 They also bribed officials to act against them to frustrate their plans throughout the reign of King Cyrus of Persia and until the reign of King Darius of Persia.

Ezra 4:24 (CSB)

24 Now the construction of God’s house in Jerusalem had stopped and remained at a standstill until the second year of the reign of King Darius of Persia.

Don’t we all worship the same God? I am guessing there would be very few here that believe that we all worship the same God. That the different religions all end up at the same place. I believe that it was David Platt who I first heard use the illustration of the mountain. That all religions have different paths up that mountain, but we end up at the same place when we get there. Maybe I am stretching this a little. I mean the people who came and asked to help said that they worship the same God. That is not worshipping something else and thinking we end up together, that is saying they believe in the same way up the mountain.

Aren’t all who worship Jesus with us? No! There are many different people, denominations and cults that will use scripture and the terminology that we use. They will celebrate the name of Jesus, proclaim that he is the son of God.

So this group coming up to offer assistance. They say that they worship and sacrifice to the God of Israel. They may actually even believe that. The problem is that they also worship other gods. So the people of God who had been exiled for their worship of false Gods are given the opportunity to fall right back into the same sin.

We must know what we believe. The crazier and more chaotic that this world seems, the more important it is to know what it is that you believe. Actually let me restate that. There are a lot of people that are convinced they are saved, convinced that they believe in a God that leads to salvation and it is based on nothing besides their own feelings and who they want God to be. The question of who God is to you is meaningless. It doesn’t matter who he is to you. What matters is who is the God of the Bible. According to Matthew 7:21-23 we must know who Him. There is nothing else that matters.

We must not compromise truth about God. Meaning we do not give a foot in the door to false doctrine and false teachings about Christ. As nice as it sounds on a bumper sticker, we do not coexist. Please hear me clearly. I am not talking about living in this world. God has not called us to cleanse the land as he did Joshua and the Israelites. We are to live in this world loving all of those created in the image of God. We are to expose the lies by shining the light of Jesus.

The ends do not justify the means. What I am saying is that we do not compromise with what we believe just to accomplish what we believe needs to happen. What we believe is the best for God, as if God needs our help. The ends do not justify the means. Know the truth of the Bible and live out that truth no matter what offer you are given by the world.

I do not tell you this in ignorance. I understand what it is that it could one day cost us. I understand what it is that the church in the rest of the world faces that we do not face here. But we may one day. I was spending some time recently listening to a lecture about the early church and the topic of martyrs came up. I prayed that day almost ashamed, Lord, I do not think that I would be able to do that. I am afraid that I am too weak, and would give into the persecution. I felt the Lord remind me of a couple things. He is not asking me to stand in the place of those martyrs. He is asking me to preach the gospel right here, in this church. But he also reminded me that in my strength I am to weak, but in my weakness, then he is strong. When we stand for the truth of God, the world will come after us, and they will not fight fair.

The world will fight in an unfair way

You have heard the saying, “All is fair in love and war.” Meaning, when it comes to war there is no such thing as unfair, or out of bounds. When I was a youth pastor and would take kids on trips there was always an anticipation that the kids would pull some pranks and things like that, especially in the middle of the night. I am not exactly small, and I often outweighed some of these kids by 100 lbs. So there was a good amount of healthy fear there. But I would always tell them, “Do not mess with me while we are sleeping. Because I will get you back and I will make you cry.” They believed me. Now I am not saying they did not attempt while we were awake to jump me with one or two of them. I had one young man who jumped on my back and said that I was not “man enough” to take him. We wrestled a little and then I body slammed that kid! I hope he doesn’t try it now, he would kill me.

Ezra 4:6–7 (CSB)

6 At the beginning of the reign of Ahasuerus, the people who were already in the land wrote an accusation against the residents of Judah and Jerusalem.

7 During the time of King Artaxerxes of Persia, Bishlam, Mithredath, Tabeel and the rest of his colleagues wrote to King Artaxerxes. The letter was written in Aramaic and translated.

So here we have two different kings. What is actually happening here. The first is Ahasuerus (Xerxes in the greek) and Artaxerxes. Xerxes is the son of King Darius, Artaxerxes is the son of Xerxes. These are the kings following Cyrus who sent the Jews back. The temple was at a stand still for a long while until the second year of King Darius. Ezra 4:24 “24 Now the construction of God’s house in Jerusalem had stopped and remained at a standstill until the second year of the reign of King Darius of Persia.” The temple gets completed as we see in Haggai 2, but with these later two kings in verses 6-23, they are talking about the building of the wall and the rest of the city. So with the temple built and the city under way, the people surrounding the city send letters to the different kings.

These are letters trying to use to political system to achieve their desired outcome of those who hate the Jewish people. We have seen things like this. How many times has that poor baker in Colorado been sued for not baking a cake for a homosexual wedding? I believe he is being sued again now for not baking a cake for a celebration of a transgender person changing genders. I believe that one day the very government that we have in our country that is supposed to preserve our rights will one day be used to remove our rights. Truth of scripture will one day be considered hate speech. How people feel about what you say will be more important than the right you have to say it.

Ezra 4:9–10 (CSB)

9 From Rehum the chief deputy, Shimshai the scribe, and the rest of their colleagues—the judges and magistrates from Tripolis, Persia, Erech, Babylon, Susa (that is, the people of Elam),

10 and the rest of the peoples whom the great and illustrious Ashurbanipal deported and settled in the cities of Samaria and the region west of the Euphrates River.

The first thing that we see is that it is not a single person that has a problem. Have you ever noticed how that is always the case. It is never just one person, but people will say, everybody has been talking about it. Okay, give me names. Well… When we attempt to convince people that there is a lot of people that are on our side, don’t we always make the group sound as big as we can? I have talked to a lot of people. We see it in politics all the time. Here are all the people who endorse me and are on my side. I have this group and that group, this celebrity and that celebrity.

Not all groups are as big as they seem. There is a strange thing that is happened with social media in our country. You can get enough shares, likes and uproar about something on social media you can make big corporations change the way they do things. They will drop sponsorships, change the way they do business and even move their stores or factories from state to state. All because the perceived outrage by so many, when really it is noisy on social media.

It made me laugh when I read this text and saw who the letter was from. Did you notice, two names and then a vague line about our colleagues in these towns. Let me translate, the two of us have a problem with this. When we talked to those boys over there they agreed with us. They didn’t want to be named, but they agree. Everybody is talking about it.

Not only do they use the political system to stop the Jews, they lie about what is happening or what will be happening.

Ezra 4:12–16(CSB)

12 Let it be known to the king that the Jews who came from you have returned to us at Jerusalem. They are rebuilding that rebellious and evil city, finishing its walls, and repairing its foundations.

13 Let it now be known to the king that if that city is rebuilt and its walls are finished, they will not pay tribute, duty, or land tax, and the royal revenue will suffer.

14 Since we have taken an oath of loyalty to the king, and it is not right for us to witness his dishonor, we have sent to inform the king

15 that a search should be made in your predecessors’ record books. In these record books you will discover and verify that the city is a rebellious city, harmful to kings and provinces. There have been revolts in it since ancient times. That is why this city was destroyed.

16 We advise the king that if this city is rebuilt and its walls are finished, you will not have any possession west of the Euphrates.

Here we go, the letter cuts right to the heart of what they are upset with. Did you catch it. They told the king that id the Jews were able to finish building the city, the walls, that he would not get any of the tribute, duty or land tax. King, this is going to cost you a pretty penny.

It is said that at the beginning of the reign of both Xerxes and Artaxerxes, they were challenged with war. Just like we would see when we get new leaders. The US gets a new president and military challenges begin to spring up around the world to see how powerful the president is. Same with these kings and they needed money. Needed to not look weak like they could not control the Jewish people who were rebuilding their city. Plus, the political leaders that we stationed in that area, Rehum, was going to lose money as well if they didn’t pay money to the king. So yes he is worried that the coffers will not be as full, but he is also well aware that will mean his income will be down as well.

Too often, we are drawn to power and money too. The Bible says that the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil. We do not chase the power and authority, we do not chase the money of this world as if either of them are needed by God to accomplish his will. But when you find yourself in the position of having one or both of those things you must not act like the world and use them for self profit but for glorification of the Lord Jesus Christ and the building up of his kingdom.

Regardless of the tactics that the world use, lies, power, finances, we must stand firm, even when it looks like the world is winning.

At times it may seem like the world is winning

I was watching my beloved Royals on TV this week. Yes, I know they are not a good team. But I have always loved my Royals and I always will. Good seasons and bad. That is my team. I was watching them on TV and they were playing the Baltimore Oriels. The Royals were winning. In fact they were winning 5-0. It looked like it was going to be an easy win. Then in the eighth inning the Oriels scored NINE runs. In one inning of a professional baseball game. The Royals snatched a loss from the hands of victory. Sometimes things are not what they appear.

Ezra 4:18–22 (CSB)

18 The letter you sent us has been translated and read in my presence.

19 I issued a decree and a search was conducted. It was discovered that this city has had uprisings against kings since ancient times, and there have been rebellions and revolts in it.

20 Powerful kings have also ruled over Jerusalem and exercised authority over the whole region west of the Euphrates River, and tribute, duty, and land tax were paid to them.

21 Therefore, issue an order for these men to stop, so that this city will not be rebuilt until a further decree has been pronounced by me.

22 See that you not neglect this matter. Otherwise, the damage will increase and the royal interests will suffer.

The Jewish people had been sent back with the blessing of King Cyrus, stalled, started back up under King Darius and now are being stopped again. This time not because the people were making them afraid, or because they were making it difficult. The king himself has issued a letter telling them that they must stop immediately.

I cannot imagine how disheartening this was. I mean how many times do you think they asked, I thought God wanted us to do this. He brought us here. He initiated this. I started this off by asking what would it take to test your faith. What is that would make you doubt that God is still in control? I can only imagine that is where these people were at. God are you really in control? The Jewish people were not sinning, they have done everything they have been asked to do and they are being stopped. Isn’t God greater than this earthy king? And there it is, the doubt that we swore we would never have. Understand, for them this is not just words, they were physically stopped.

Ezra 4:23 (CSB)

23 As soon as the text of King Artaxerxes’s letter was read to Rehum, Shimshai the scribe, and their colleagues, they immediately went to the Jews in Jerusalem and forcibly stopped them (Literal text means - they made them cease by force and might).

How do we respond to this? We fight! Right, we take a stand for Jesus and we fight and battle them all! We storm our political leaders, we overtake the government. So that we have the power. No, none of that.

We must understand that the battle belongs to the Lord. He is the one who started this, he is the one who will finish it. I am not saying that we do not stand for the Lord. I will stand on the truth of who God is and will not back down. But when I read what Jesus said in Matthew 5, when attacked, we are to love. When we are sued, we are to give them our coat too. Not meaning that give more than we are supposed to, but that we care that little about earthly things. Fine have my shirt too, I will not stop speaking of the things that I have seen and heard. That we are love and pray for our enemies. So then, we do not pray for safety, the boldness to stand for him when and where he has called us to do so.

But know this. As scary as that sounds, we can live in peace in this broken lost world knowing that Jesus has conquered the world. There is nothing that he has not faced and withstood. He lived, one hundred percent human, in this world without sin. Living the righteous life that we are called to live but fail to do. Then the perfect man, who is also one hundred percent God, went to the cross as a sacrifice for our sins, died and three days later rose from the grave.

John 16:33 (CSB)

33 I have told you these things so that in me you may have peace. You will have suffering in this world. Be courageous! I have conquered the world.”

What can this world do to us, take our life? To die is gain. I will be with Jesus.

Hear the words of Jesus, that while we are suffering, and while we are facing all kinds of challenges from the world, we can have peace knowing that he has conquered the world.