Now, would you open your Bibles
with me this evening to the book of Ezra, chapter 1. Now, I've told people that I'm
really beginning a study on the rebuilding of the walls of Jerusalem
out of Nehemiah, chapter 3. And I am beginning that. But
I want you to start in Ezra, chapter 1. The book of Ezra,
right after 2 Chronicles. Now, I've entitled tonight's
message, A Glorious Restoration. A Glorious Restoration. This
is a time in Israel's history when the nation, after having
been in captivity in a foreign nation for 70 years, is restored
in three different segments back to the Promised Land. And, of
course, this restoration Just like the time when Israel was
delivered from Egypt by Moses is an object lesson. It's an
object or a picture of the ultimate restoration of spiritual Israel
in and by and through the Lord Jesus Christ. And that's the
way we ought to look at everything in Scripture, obviously, because
it speaks of Christ, leads us to Christ. We're to look at it
to preach it, to study it, understand it in the light of God's grace
in Christ. And just like Israel was delivered
from Egypt under Moses, God's chosen leader and mediator, Judah,
or Israel, is going to be delivered from their captivity here. And
it's through no power or goodness of their own. It's totally a
work of God's goodness and mercy and a work of God's faithfulness.
That's why I read Lamentations chapter 3, you know, that says,
Great is thy faithfulness. God is true and faithful to His
promises. And He'd made a promise years
before this to keep that nation together until the appointed
time, and that of course is the time of the Messiah, the time
of Christ. And so he kept this nation together.
And it's really kind of fascinating to look at the scriptures and
see the history of it. And I told some men last night,
I said, I pray that I don't get you bogged down in history. I'm
not trying to teach a history lesson, but I think it would
be profitable for us to look at history from God's point of
view, how he brings everything together and all the intricate
things that take place in Providence. geographically and socially,
even in the courts of kings, and how God brings it all together
to accomplish His purpose of grace. And I always think when
I study biblical history, you know, sometimes you can't be
real precise about the dates or even the names, but the ultimate
lesson, the main lesson is right there. When God said, remember
the former things of old, And he says, I'm God, there's none
else. I declare the end from the beginning. I raise up one
to do my bidding, to do my will, to execute my judgment, even
a ravenous bird from the east. You remember he said that in
Isaiah 46? Well, we're going to read about that ravenous bird
from the east that God raised up. This is the fulfillment of
that specific prophecy. To execute His judgment upon
His people before their sin and their rebellion. And here, Israel,
in captivity, got what they deserved, and yet God, by His mercy and
goodness, preserved them. This is a story of restoration
and hope in the Lord. And I hope that's your story,
as a sinner saved by the grace of God. That's my story. It's a story of hope and restoration
in the Lord, who saved me by His grace. It's a story of God
keeping his covenant promises to Israel to restore them back
to their homeland according to his promise that he made to Abraham
years and years and years before to send a Redeemer to save his
people from their sins. About 200 years before this point
in time in Ezra, The northern ten tribes of Israel had been
totally conquered and scattered and obliterated, and you know
what? They never did return to their homeland. Haven't yet. I don't care what they say. But
you see, and that was a little over 700 years before the coming
of Christ, to give you just a perspective there. But it's 200 years before
this. And God warned them through the
prophets that to obey Him. You see, their destruction was
the result of their own sin and their own rebellion. It was God's
punishment of them. But God warned them over and
over again through prophets like Hosea. He was a prophet to the
northern kingdom. He was one who warned the people
continually, not only in his words, but in his life. You know
the story of Hosea and Gomer. Beautiful story of God's grace.
Beautiful picture of how God saves sinners who don't deserve
and cannot earn His blessings and His favor. A beautiful picture
of Christ buying His people off the slave block of sin, just
like Hosea bought his whorish wife, Gomer, off the slave block
and paid the price, just like Christ paid the price for us.
See, that was all going on back then in the Northern Kingdom
when the nation was in rebellion, when the nation was in unbelief,
rejecting God and going off into false religion and immorality.
Amos was another prophet that God used to preach to them and
preach repentance, repent or perish. But Israel wouldn't listen. They wouldn't repent. They wouldn't
obey. And my friend, you know, that's
a picture of man by nature without God, without grace, without the
Holy Spirit to make us willing to bow and submit to God's grace. Now, at that time, the southern
kingdom, which was called Judah because Judah was the main tribe.
It was made up mainly of the tribe of Judah and Benjamin.
They lasted about 130 years longer. after the Northern Kingdom was
destroyed, about 130 years later, maybe a little more than that,
they lasted. And a few times in their history
things went well. The leaders, the king, and the
leaders of the country were in obedience to God's covenant.
Like, for example, during the reign of Hezekiah, we studied
that when we went through Isaiah, and the reign of Josiah. But
their history, too, was mostly a history of sin, and rebellion
and idolatry, even up until the time of their captivity. In fact,
it was worse during that time when the prophet Jeremiah continually
called the nation to repentance. And they despised Jeremiah. And
they gathered their own false prophets who would preach their
message, who would speak peace to them. You remember Jeremiah,
he kept saying, they'll say, peace, peace, when there is no
peace. You know, that's a mark of a
false preacher. He said, they heal the wounds of my daughters
slightly. It's like trying to put a Band-Aid
on sin. It won't take care of the problem.
You see, sin demands death, not topical creams and Band-Aids.
That won't do it. And that's what false preachers
honor and what they preach. But God spoke to the Southern
Kingdom, too. He spoke to them through prophets
like Isaiah, the book that we just got finished studying. Micah
was one of those prophets during that time. And in their latter
days, before their fall, here comes Jeremiah, the prophet.
Nahum was one. Zephaniah, Habakkuk, they were
all prophets who were telling the Southern Kingdom, repent
or perish. And again, we know man by nature
will not do it. Well, around that time, It was
about 587 or 586 BC. That means about almost 600 years
before Christ. God brings punishment down on
the southern kingdom. And he did it through a Babylonian
king named Nebuchadnezzar. You've heard of Nebuchadnezzar.
What a history he has. Read about him in the book of
Daniel. First part of Daniel. Yes, he's that king who got so
lifted up in his own pride that God brought him down and put
him out in a field like a wild animal. And you remember what?
He came out. He came out, he said, Israel's
God is God. So here comes King Nebuchadnezzar
and he brought his army into Jerusalem and he conquered Judea.
And the people were taken away to Babylon in three different
segments, three different ways. And they were held in captivity
for 70 years. Jeremiah predicted that. You can mark this down.
Jeremiah 25 and verse 11. Listen to this. It says, "...and
this whole land shall be a desolation and an astonishment. And these
nations shall serve the king of Babylon seventy years." And
it was seventy years. God told the truth. You see,
He declares the end from the beginning. God didn't look down
through time and foresee that that's how long it was going
to be. God was not a crystal ball gazer who was trying to
look into the future that's inevitable. God is the determinate One. It's according to His determinate
counsel and His sovereign will. My friend, that's why we can
depend upon Him, look to Him, and rest in Him for salvation. That's why it says, in the fullness
of the time, God sent forth His Son, made of a woman, made under
the law, to redeem them that were under the law. God is not
subject to time. God controls time. And He's sovereign. And so they remained in captivity
for 70 years. Now, the prophets during the
captivity, you might be interested to hear who they were. Well,
you know, it was Daniel. Daniel was one of them. and Ezekiel,
they were both prophets during the captivity. Obadiah, Zechariah,
Haggai, they were all prophets in the captivity. And in the
last part of their captivity comes along Joel and then Nehemiah,
who we're going to eventually study, and Malachi in the latter
part of that. Well, the prophets continually
warned the people to follow God's rule and commandments and follow
God's covenant. And ultimately, every one of
those prophets pointed sinners to trust in the living God, the
covenant God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and look forward to
the time that His Messiah would come and redeem us from our sins. That was their message. Now,
the nation was under Babylonian rule for 50 years of that 70
years. In fact, over there in Psalm
137 that Brother Joe read, I thought that was interesting. This psalm
is a psalm concerning that very thing. By the waters of Babylon. That's the nation under the rule
of a foreign dictator. And what did they do? Look at
verse 1. By the rivers of Babylon, there
we sat down Yea, we wept when we remembered Zion, when we remembered
home. You ever been away from home
when you didn't want to be? When you were forced not to be
some of you men who were in the military and had to go overseas
and fight? Did you feel this way by the
rivers of Babylon or wherever it was you were you sat down
and wept when you remembered Zion? You remembered the homeland.
You remembered the home fires and the family and all of that.
And that's the way they felt. But here's something that's interesting.
Look at verse 4. They asked this question. Now, it says their
captors wanted them to be happy. Their captors wanted them to
sing songs of joy. They'd say, let's hear some of
those great songs of Zion. Not because they wanted to worship
God now, but because they wanted entertainment. And so they kept
goading them and trying to entice them. to bring out these songs
of joy, but verse 4 says, How shall we sing the Lord's songs
in a strange land? Now, what's interesting about
that is this. When they were in the Lord's
land, when they were in their own homeland, they wouldn't sing
the Lord's songs. That's why they were in the strange
land, because they refused to believe God. They refused to
worship God. They refused to rest in Him and
His promise of salvation in the coming Redeemer. But now they're
complaining. Well, that's like us, isn't it? We can see ourselves in that,
you know. When things are going well, you
know, we just have a tendency to forget God. But then when
things get worse, then we turn to God and wonder why we are
where we are. That's man by nature. So this
nation is not so different than us, is it? Well, God and His
providence. Now, here's what happened. They
were in that foreign land. They'd been there 50 years, all
total 70, but the first 50 under Babylon. And you know what happened
there. It's recorded in the book of
Daniel where the last Babylonian king, Belshazzar, you remember
he held a big party. And he used the vessels out of
the temple that were sanctified under the service of God, and
he used them for his party. He used them for unholy purposes,
indicating his total, total hatred of the living God. And you remember
the handwriting on the wall, many, many titeli farsi, you've
been found weighed into balance and found wanting. And that very
night, you remember Isaiah predicted this, that very night, Babylon
fell under the hand of the Medo-Persian army, the Medes and the Persians. And they fell in one night without
even, I think he said, if I can remember, without even the door
being broken down. The door was open to them. Isaiah
predicted that 130 years before it happened. You know why? Because
God determined it. God decreed it. You see, everything
that's happening in this history is under the hand of Almighty
God. And it's not out of control,
it's not out of whack. You see, we read the headlines
and we say, man, what's going on? Everything in God's mind
and in God's providence is right on schedule. That's amazing,
but it's true. We may not like it at a given
second, but it's there. So what happens here? Well, God
intervenes in his providence and he raised up the Medes and
the Persians under Cyrus, who conquered Babylon. And the king
of Babylon then became Cyrus. And the rest of Judah's captivity
was under the Medo-Persian Empire. Look at chapter 1 of the book
of Ezra. Now, let me give you this. In the original Hebrew
manuscript, Ezra and Nehemiah are one book. And most scholars
say, well, God used Ezra to write them both. And most think He
used Ezra to write the Chronicles, 1 and 2 Chronicles. That's probably
true. But you'll notice that Ezra, the book of Ezra, begins
the same way that 2 Chronicles ends. So look at verse 1. He says, Now in the first year
Cyrus, king of Persia, that the word of the Lord by the mouth
of Jeremiah might be fulfilled. Now, Jeremiah prophesied of this
too, as well as Isaiah. The Lord stirred up the spirit
of Cyrus, king of Persia. Now, Cyrus was an idolater. He
was not a believer. But as the book of Proverbs tells
us, the king's heart is in the hand of the Lord to turn it as
he will. And that's every king. That's
any king. And it says that he made a proclamation
throughout all his kingdom, and put it also into writing, saying,
verse 2, Thus saith Cyrus king of Persia, The Lord God of heaven
hath given me all the kingdoms of the earth, And he hath charged
me to build him a house at Jerusalem, which is in Judah." Now, he's
talking about the temple. Now, the temple had been destroyed
by Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonians. Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonians
had no regard for the God of Israel, for their worship or
anything about it. And as I said, the very last
king of Babylon, when they were destroyed, what was he doing?
He was making merry with the vessels of the temple. Had no
regard for it. For a good reason, God stirred
up Cyrus, another heathen king, who wasn't a believer, but he
turned this man's heart to the point where he issued a decree
that the Jews could go back to their homeland and rebuild the
temple. That's amazing to me. I tell you, I stand in awe of
this. I hope you do too. But think about it. He says,
verse 3, Who is there among you of all his people? Is God be
with him? Let him go up to Jerusalem, which
is in Judah, and build the house of the Lord God of Israel. He
is the God which is in Jerusalem. And whosoever remaineth in any
place where he sojourneth, let the men of his place help him
with silver and with gold and with goods and with beasts beside
the freewill offerings for the house of God that is in Jerusalem."
See, Cyrus even provided materials for him to do it. God stirred
this man up to do this. God is going to take care of
his people. Just like Christ said, I'm going to take care
of my church. He told Peter in the apostles, he said, upon this
rock, I will build my church and the gates of hell will not
prevail against it. Now we may get low sometimes
like Israel under Babylon, but God is going to take care of
his people. He's not going to forsake his
people. He's not going to do it. And
you can bank on it. Look at verse 5, it's just interesting,
"...then rose up the chief of the fathers of Judah and Benjamin,"
that's the southern kingdom, "...and the priests and the Levites
with all them whose spirit God had raised." Now you know what's
amazing to me about that is for 50 years they've been in captivity
under a government that had no regard for their religion or
their God, and they can still point out who the Judeans are,
who the tribe of Judah, and the priests and the Levites. You
know, most times when countries would get conquered, they would
be assimilated into the culture, but not here. And I'm going to
tell you something, I guarantee it was the hand of God that kept
them separate. It was the hand of God. And I'll
tell you, you can equate this with other Bible stories. Think
about Daniel and how he had favor with the king. That's one way
God preserved him. And then As I said, we're going
to read about Nehemiah. He was the cupbearer to the king.
Now, a lot of people say that was just a slave servant. No,
it wasn't. That was an important position.
He had influence with the king. But I'll tell you something else.
During this time, a little bit past here where we're reading,
you'll find the events of the book of Esther. And Esther was
married to the king. And there's a king that, if you
study in school, some of you, you remember the king named Xerxes.
That was his name. And that's who Esther was married
to. And she influenced the king. And out of that is against people
who hated Israel and wanted to kill them all. Haman wanted to
kill every one of them, from the oldest to the youngest. But
Esther, and you remember the story of Mordecai. I don't want
to get off on that, but that's amazing, you see, how all that
comes together. In God's providence, His control
of all things. And here these priests and Levites,
he said, with all them whose spirit had raised to go up to
build the house of the Lord, which is in Jerusalem. You see
that? Now, over a nine-decade period,
90 years, there were three waves of the return. You remember I
told you Babylon, when they conquered Judah, they took them in three
different groups. Well, they return back in three
different groups. That's God's plan, too. Three
is the number of divinity. That means this is God's work.
This is divine work. Men think and they plan and they
scheme and they say, we're going to do this tomorrow, we're going
to do this and that. But God, it's all according to his will
and according to his plan. And that's how it worked out.
So over a 90-year period, there were three waves of return of
the Israelites to Judea and Jerusalem. Well, let me tell you a little
bit about it. The first one was under a man named Zerubbabel. You've heard of Zerubbabel. That's
what the first six chapters of Ezra is taken up with, the first
return under a man named Zerubbabel. Now, the second wave was under
Ezra himself, Ezra the scribe, Ezra the priest, and that's Ezra
7 through 10. Now, about 57 years between the
events of Ezra chapter 6 and Ezra chapter 7, that's where
you have the events of the book of Esther, right there. Right
in between chapter 6 and chapter 7 of Ezra. About 57 years before
Ezra started with the second wave. And that's when the book
of Esther, I believe, took place, the history of it. But now the
third wave and the final wave of their restoration and return
was under Nehemiah. And that's what the whole book
of Nehemiah was about. Now, each wave had great significance
for the nation physically and spiritually. Let me show you
why. Under Zerubbabel, the first wave, under Zerubbabel, the main
task that was given to the people who returned to Judah and Jerusalem
was to rebuild the temple of God. That's number one. Rebuild
the temple. re-establish the priesthood and
the sacrifices and the worship of God, and re-establish the
worship of the God of the covenant of promise. That's number one.
Here's something to note. Zerubbabel was a descendant of
David, of the house of Judah. In fact, he's mentioned in Matthew
chapter 1 and verse 12 as in the lineage of our Savior, according
to the flesh. And Zerubbabel is a type. He's
a type of Christ our King. He was made governor of Judah. In essence, King. And He's a
type of Christ our King. And what is the lesson here?
Turn to Colossians chapter 1. Here's the lesson. And it's simply
this. It's not difficult. It's not
deep. It's simply that Christ is to have the preeminence in
all things. That's why that temple's got
to be built. The foundation has to be laid. The Messiah must
be taught out and testified of and revealed in all the types
and the pictures. This is the reason. Listen. He,
Christ, is the reason that this nation was a nation to begin
with. He's the reason that God kept
them together up until this time throughout all their rebellion
and all their idolatry and all their sinfulness. He's the reason
that He chastised them and brought them into punishment. He's the
reason that they were restored back to their homeland at this
time. Christ is the reason. And that's
what Colossians says in verse 1 and verse 15. Talking about
Christ, in whom we, through His blood, we have the forgiveness
of sins. Christ, who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn
of every creature. And that doesn't mean He was
the first one born, but He's the first of everyone who is
born. That's what that means. He's
first in all things. And it says, for by Him were
all things created that are in heaven and that are in earth,
visible and invisible, whether they be thrones or dominions
or principalities or powers. All things were created by Him
and for Him. Now, don't you believe that includes
the nation Israel? They were created by Him and
for Him. That's all things now, but that included. And then it
goes on, and he is before all things. That means he's preeminent.
And by him, all things consist. And he's the head of the body,
the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead,
that in all things he might have the preeminence. He's the heavenly
Zerubbabel, you might say. I remember hearing a fellow,
I can't remember who it was, one of the preachers in the conference back
in the 80s, preached that, called the heavenly Zerubbabel. And
that's who he is. What a picture. You see, in the
establishment, now Zerubbabel was to take them back as the
leader, and they were to rebuild the temple. They were to establish
foundation. In the establishment of God's
kingdom, the foundation must first be laid. And Paul wrote
it in 1 Corinthians 3, verse 11, for other foundation can
no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ. He is
the foundation. He's the foundation of the church.
He's the rock upon which we're built. He's the chief cornerstone.
He's the head of the body. He's the heart of the church.
And what that temple represents and all of its sacrifices is
the glorious person and finished work of Christ. You see, in order
for the people to be established as a nation, that perfect work
must be done. And that's the way it is with
the church. In order for the heavenly Israel,
the heavenly Jerusalem, to be established as a spiritual nation,
Christ must first do his perfect work. But he has already done
it. He did it on Calvary. He shed his precious blood as
the full payment of all our sins, and he worked out a perfect righteousness
whereby God could be just and justify the ungodly. The foundation
has been laid, and the Temple is being built right now. That
is the Church. Every brick, every stone. living stones, as the
Scripture calls it. The people of God must be founded
upon Him and looked to Him. Look at Ezra chapter 3. Let me
just read a few more verses in this. Ezra chapter 3, look at
verse 1. It says, And when the seventh
month was come, and the children of Israel were in the cities,
the people gathered themselves together as one man to Jerusalem. What a great picture of the church.
One body. one faith, one Lord, one baptism. We're one! And then it says in
verse 2, "...then stood up Jeshua, the son of Josiah." Now, this
Joshua here was the high priest at the time. He's the same one
who had the dream back in the book of Zechariah. In Zechariah
3, where he saw Satan, the accuser of the brethren, and the Lord,
the angel of the Lord, stood up and defended him. That's Christ.
He said, is not this Abraham plucked out of the fire? is not
this one whom God has chosen?" And he said he was wearing his
filthy rags and he said, take off those filthy rags and put
on him a change of raiment. That's the same one. And he says,
"...and his brethren, the priest and Zerubbabel, the son of Shealtiel,
and his brethren, and builded the altar of the God of Israel
to offer burnt offerings thereon, as it is written in the law of
Moses, the man of God." It says in verse 6 down there, "...from
the first day of the seventh month began they to offer burnt
offerings unto the Lord, but the foundation of the temple
of the Lord was not yet laid." They had to lay the foundation.
Now, when they got back into the Promised Land, they did have
problems. They had some people trying to
sabotage them, and they started to build the foundation, and
then they quit, and then they started up again, and then they
got the foundation laid, and then they went 20 years without
doing anything else. And then Ezra comes back in later
on, and they begin to build the temple again. But look at verse
11 of Ezra 3. It says, "...and they sang together
by chorus, in praising and giving thanks unto the Lord, because
he is good, for his mercy endureth forever toward Israel. And all
the people shouted with a great shout when they praised the Lord,
because the foundation of the house of the Lord was laid."
They worship God. That's undesirable. Now, the
second wave under Ezra. The main task under Ezra was
to preserve the purity of the nation. Ezra talks a lot about,
in the second part of his book, about not intermarrying with
foreigners. And that was to keep the nation
pure and chaste from corruption. And then, mainly under Ezra,
was to be a reestablishment of the word of the Lord and its
promise. Ezra was a scribe and a priest.
Now, a scribe was one who was an expert in the Scriptures.
And that's what Ezra was. And he set his heart, it says,
to learn the Word of God, to learn the ways of God. And he
brought the Word of the Lord to the people. It was Ezra who
stood up before the people in Jerusalem on the pulpit of wood,
and he read from the Scripture, and then he gave the sense of
Scripture. He preached the Gospel. And the Word of God was to be
reestablished as the main issue. Preach the Word. Now, what's
that teaching us? It's teaching us that Christ
is the Word, and if He's to have the preeminence in this body
of believers, the Word of God must be at the forefront. He's
the living Word. He's the subject of the written
Word. And He needs to be the subject
of the preached Word. He is the Word made flesh and
dwells among us. And as Ezra was a priest, Christ,
who is a priest, the high priest, Ezra was a type of Christ as
our great high priest. Well, the temple was finished
in this time. Now turn to Nehemiah chapter
1. Turn over to Nehemiah. Now here
is the third way. Now under Nehemiah, There was
given another task. You see, under Zerubbabel, the
temple was to be built. Under Ezra, the Word was to be
established. Under Nehemiah, the task was
to rebuild the walls of the city of Jerusalem and all of its gates.
You see, Nehemiah was a prophet. He is a great type of Christ,
our prophet. You see, for the establishment
of the church, it takes one who is a prophet, one who is a priest,
and one who is a king. And that's what we have pictured
here in this restoration. Christ, our prophet, pictured
by Nehemiah. Christ, our priest, pictured
by Ezra. And Christ, our king, pictured
by Zerubbabel. He is our great prophet. And
I want to just read Nehemiah 1. Look at him. He says, the
words of Nehemiah, the son of Hekeliah, and it came to pass
in the month of Tishlu in the twentieth year, as I was in Shushan,
the palace, that Hanani, one of my brethren, came, he and
certain men of Judah, and I asked them concerning the Jews that
had escaped, which were left of the captivity, and concerning
Jerusalem. And they said unto me, the remnant
that are left of the captivity there in the province are in
great affliction and reproach. The wall of Jerusalem also is
broken down." What this man is telling Nehemiah is things aren't
really good back home. The wall of Jerusalem is broken
down, and the gates thereof are burned with fire, the gates of
Jerusalem. I'm going to deal with each one
of those gates in chapter 3. And it came to pass when I heard
these words that I sat down and wept, sorrow, sorrow, sorrow. I wept and mourned certain days
and fasted, that's a sign of remorse, repentance, and prayed
before the God of heaven and I said, I beseech thee, O Lord
God of heaven, the great and terrible God, that keepeth covenant
and mercy for them that love him and observe his commandments.
And what was His commandments? To admit and confess their sinfulness,
their depravity, their impotence, and to depend totally upon Him
and His promised Messiah for salvation, and everything that
goes along with that. It was all a people who were
dependent upon the goodness, the greatness, the power of the
living God, and not on themselves. And he says in verse 6, he says,
Let thine ear now be attentive, and thine eyes open, that thou
mayest hear the prayer of thy servant, which I pray before
thee now, day and night, for the children of Israel thy servants,
and confess the sins of the children of Israel, which we have sinned
against thee. You see, Nehemiah didn't leave
himself out. He didn't just say, Lord, I'm praying for that bunch
of rotten sinners down there in Jerusalem. No, he said, Be
merciful to all of us, Lord. We're all sinners. That's a prophet
of God. That's a man of God. We're all
sinners. There's no one higher than another,
better than another. We're sinners. We need grace.
That's why we need Christ. That's why he must have the preeminence.
And he says, both I and my Father's house have sinned. His Father's
house. My whole family. It's like Isaiah
when he said, I'm a man of unclean lips and I dwell in the midst
of a people of unclean lips. That's total depravity. That's
why we need God's electing grace, God's redeeming grace, God's
regenerating grace. That's why we need all of God's
glorifying grace. He says in verse 7, we have dealt
very corruptly against thee. We have, see, not just them.
against thee, and have not kept the commandments, nor the statutes,
nor the judgments, which thou commandest thy servant Moses."
We read about exactly what they were doing in the book of Isaiah.
Same thing in the book of Jeremiah. Forsaking the ways of God and
going after their own ways and ideas. Lifting themselves up. Remember, worship without truth.
Worship without grace. Worship without heart. All of
that. He says in verse 8, I beseech
thee, I beg thee, the word that thou commandest thy servant Moses,
saying, If you transgress, I will scatter you abroad among the
nations." In other words, it wasn't like this thing sneaked
up on them from behind. They knew full well what the
consequences of rebellion were. But look at verse 9, "...but
if you turn unto me, and keep my commandments, and do them."
Now, that's not salvation by works. He says, though there
were of you cast out unto the uttermost part of the heaven,
yet will I gather them from thence, and will bring them unto the
place that I have chosen to set my name there, his glory." Now,
again, that's not salvation by words. Because, you see, if they
turn unto the Lord and keep His commandments and do them, That's
the mark of sinners who come before God with nothing to recommend
them unto God, but simply throwing themselves at His mercy and seeking
His grace. That's what that's about, ultimately
in the Messiah, in the Lord Jesus Christ. And he said, that's where
my glory is, in the salvation of a sinner. That's where his
name is. And so verse 10, Now these are thy servants and thy
people, whom thou hast redeemed by thy great power, and by thy
strong hand." They were redeemed out of captivity here by power. Just like spiritual Israel is
redeemed out of captivity spiritually by blood, the blood of Christ. So he says in verse 11, O LORD,
I beseech thee, let now thine ear be attentive to the prayer
of thy servant. and to the prayer of thy servants,
whose desire to fear thy name and prosper, I pray thee, thy
servant this day, and grant him mercy in the sight of this man,
for I was the king's cupbearer." You know what he's asking for,
don't you? He's saying, God, give me favor
in the sight of the king that I may be allowed to go back and
spearhead the rebuilding of the walls of Jerusalem. You see that? Be merciful to me, for I am the
king's cupbearer." He had some influence with the king. Well,
I'm not going to go any further tonight, but you see the history
of it. Now we're up to Nehemiah. God's
been teaching him. He's holy. He must punish sin. Their captivity is what they
deserve, the wages of sin. We, by nature, deserve nothing
better than eternal death. But God is good, and He is merciful
to His people, and He is faithful to His covenant promise, and
He will not go back on it. He will not take it back. He
will not repent, for He has no need of repentance. I am the
Lord, I change not, therefore you sons of Jacob are not consumed.
What a God we worship. We who are justified by God in
Christ, who are redeemed and regenerated and called as the
light of the world, God is going to have His witness in this world.
And we're going to be the reflections of the glory of our Savior. And
what a time it is to be alive in history when we consider all
of that. For the last days are here. The
time of His return is coming. I don't know how soon. I don't
know when. But let us live in the light
of the knowledge of the glory of God in Christ. Amen.