Ezra chapter 9, and let me by
way of introduction make a few comments. The book of Ezra, and you'll
run across some names in here that's well known to you. The books of Ezra and Nehemiah
and Esther. They deal with the history of
Israel and Judah after they were returned from the Babylonian
captivity and came back to Jerusalem. But that was only a remnant that
came back. Only a remnant according to election.
That's all that came back. And we'll find out, you know,
that these are people whose spirit God had raised up. And that was
over 3 million Jews that were taken into Babylonian captivity.
A large number of them. And when Zerubbabel and Joshua
Zerubbabel, the priest, and Joshua, Zerubbabel, the governor, and
Joshua, the priest, came back. They only brought 50,000 with
them the first time. Out of 3 million, 50,000 came
back to Jerusalem. The poorest people had been left
in Jerusalem, people that could not do anybody any good. They
took all the laborers, all the workers, all the businessmen,
everybody that was anybody, they carried them back and left the
very poorest, left the off-scouring in Jerusalem. So when these folks
had been gone 70 years, and they came back, can you imagine the
shape that Jerusalem was in? Gates were falling down, walls
were crumbling, The tabernacle, the temple was just in ruins. The glory of the temple was just
in ruins that Solomon had made. I mean, it was just, they were
just in ruins. So these 50,000 people, they
come back. And that's the way God has. He
has a multitude of people scattered out through all this world. And
it seems now that they're under his wrath, yet he scattered them
in mercy and he preserved them. in bondage and sin until the
day that he calls them. They're scattered here and yonder.
But he'll call them, just as he called these Jews back out
of bondage and back out of Babylon. And Babylon at that time is where
Baghdad is now. That's in Persia. That's by the
Euphrates River. That's where Babylon was. The
Persian Empire. That was the seat of the Persian
Empire at that particular time. That's where Babylon was. He
kept them there until God raised up a king. Cyrus and Zerubbabel
were to bring them out of that place. And God always has an
appointed time of life. His elect, His people, that no
matter where they're at, what kind of bodies they're in, and
how they got there, He's going to bring His chosen ones out.
Those, because He's loved them with an everlasting love, they've
been redeemed by the blood of Christ, they've been preserved
in Christ, they will be brought into the liberty of the children
of God. They will be brought to Christ.
They'll be brought to Zion, into the church of the living God.
And that's why Romans 11, 26 and 27 says, and so all Israel
shall be saved. Now, most people take that absolutely
literal, that God's going to save every Jew on the top side
of God's earth. But they're not all Israel who
are of Israel. For in thy seed shall they be
caught. And there shall come out a Zion
who delivers, shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob. And happy
is the people who ask the God of Jacob for their help and their
God. God's a God of election. God's a God of love. God's a
God of mercy. God's a God of sovereignty and
choosing, and so He'll turn away ungodliness from Jacob. And this
is my covenant unto them when I shall take away their sins.
That's what He says He's going to do, and that's what He does.
Now, these Jews had went down into Babylon, and they went down
there, and while they were there, they learned the ways of Babylon.
And Babylon in Revelations is talking about false religion,
harlot religion, and how people are caught up in it. And the
Jews went down into Babylon with all these different things, but
while they were there, they learned the ways of Babylon. And while
they were there, they learned to become successful businessmen,
merchants, shopkeepers. They became very prosperous down
there in Babylon. They became very materialistic. And so when it come time to go
back to Jerusalem, I don't want to go. Don't want to go. It was
like Lodge and all of his family. We don't want to leave Solomon
anymore. We got a good house down here. This is where the
things at. This is where the shoppers centers are. This is
where the business is at. This is where the money's at.
And boy, I tell you what, the only way in the world I got out
of there, God would have got a hell hold on him and drug him
out of that place or he never would have left. And that's the
way these people were. And you talk about 3 million
people, 50,000 of them want to go back to Jerusalem? They didn't want to go back.
It was like they had no sooner been out of Egypt than they had
been three days turning out of Egypt and they said to Moses,
if you brought us out of here for us to die in the wilderness,
They started finding forward God immediately. And though they
didn't want to go back to Jerusalem, and even though they were still
slaves where they were, they were in a foreign land. They
preferred the slavery of Babylon with its wealth to the liberty
and freedom of worshiping God back up in Jerusalem. And you
know, people say, well, it seems like they might have changed
a lot while they were in Babylon. No, no, they didn't change. No,
no. They were what they always were. A man's what he is, where he
were he is, if God don't change him. Their captivity only proved
what they were, that they didn't want to worship God. They weren't
worshipers of God. They were materialistic. They
were well-seekers. And that's why God sends us trials.
Trials don't change us. They just simply prove what we
are. That's all they do. And I'm telling you, beloved,
these fellows, they didn't change the goddamn Babylon. Babylon
didn't change them. They was that way when they got
there. What they really were is what was manifested. And when
God sends trials to us, what we are is what's manifested in
how we react to it. And oh, let's look over here
at Psalm 137. Here's what. There was an elect
remnant. There was an elect remnant in
Babylon. Psalm 137. I want you to see
this. It's in the notes here, but I
want us to turn and look at it. There was a lake remnant in Babylon
whom the Lord preserved, and He revived up their spirit. And
this 70-year trial of being in Babylon made them cry out for
liberty and want to go back to Jerusalem and worship God in
Jerusalem. You remember how Daniel was? They said, don't you pray. Daniel never forgot his God.
The three huge rich children never forgot their God. And they
always wanted to go back. And there's 50,000 here that
wanted to go back because they was a remnant according to the
election of grace. But now look what happens here. And they said
in Psalms 137, verse 1. Now here's the people that wanted
to go back. By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down. Yea, when we sat down there,
we began to weep. We began to cry. When we remembered
Zion, when we remembered that great city of the great king,
and we hanged our hearts upon the willows in the midst of that
river, the hearts that we played on to sing praises unto God,
to sing the Psalms. Now listen to what happens. For
there they that carried us away captive required us a song. They that took us to be slaves
and carried us away, sing us a song. Get your hearts and sing
us a song. I hear you good singers. I hear
you sing praises. Sing us a song. And they have
wasted us, required the earth. They wanted us to be happy. Wanted
us to sing happy songs. Say, sing us one of the songs
of Zion. That's what they're telling when
they're down there in Babylon. And then he says this, How shall
we sing the Lord's song in a strange land? How are we going to sing
the Lord's song in us in a strange land? So, oh my, I want to go
back to Jerusalem, that city of David, that city of the great
king, that place where God's worshipped. And, oh beloved,
in many of the Jews, they refused to return when God opened the
door, but the Spirit of God turned up the hearts of the Son and
made them willing in the day of His power. And I want to give
you the message of the book here in chapter 9 and verse 9. Here's
the message of chapter 9 and verse 9. Look what he says here.
For we were bonded, yet our God hath not forsaken us in our bondage. God hath not forsaken us in our
bondage. We're in bondage, but God hath
not forsaken us. And watch what he says, "...but
hath extended mercy unto us in the sight of the kings of Persia,
to give us a reviving, to set up the house of our God, and
to repair the desolations thereof, and to give us a wall in Judah
and in Jerusalem." In bondage, but God hasn't forsaken us. That's
the message. Ezra speaks of God's blessed
grace in keeping, reviving, and restoring his people. Now turn
back over here in chapter 1, just a moment. And let's go through
this. And you know, you can go through
this and you can count. If you want to count how many
came back with Zerubbabel and Joshua, you can go down here
and it tells whose children it was and how many there was that
came in with them. You know, one had there 775 2,812. You go down through there, you
can count exactly how many came up with them in chapters 1 through
5 when God brought up Zerubbabel. Zerubbabel leads about 550,000
back to Jerusalem. And you remember over in Hosea,
Lois and Zechariah, where it says that old Zerubbabel, that builds the city of God,
that restores the temple, and he says, and then Joshua, the
high priest is called up there, and he's got filthy garments
on, and God says here, you know, in Satan's stance, he's right-handed
to resist him, take away his filthy garments and put clean
garments on him, and dress him in the high priest robes. Remember
that in 2nd Romans. These are the two people we're
talking about here. And oh, and we find Zerubbabel leading about
50,000, and the first thing they've done, they begin to build the
altar of God, and then laid the foundation of the temple. And then you have another long
period of sadness in the days of Esther. Remember when Haman
tried to get all the Jews expelled out of Babylon. But look what
it says here now, in chapter 2, in verse 1. Now these are
the children of the prophets that went up out of the captivity,
those which had been carried away whom Nebuchadnezzar, the
king of Babylon, had carried away unto Babylon, and came unto
Jerusalem, and unto Judea, everyone unto his city, which came with
Zerubbabel, Joshua, Nehemiah, and you go, you know you've heard
all of those people's names. And those are the people that
God brought back. He brought 50,000 back. We can
go down through there and count them up yourself. And then in
chapter 6 through 10, and I'll stay over in chapter 7, let's
look at that. Then there's another group that
comes with Ezra. Ezra leads another smaller group
out of Babylon and brings them back to Jerusalem. Turn to chapter
7, in verse 1. Showing you how these two different
groups came at different times. Now the different kings raised
up now. Now after these things, in the reign of Artaxerxes, the
king of Persia, Ezra, the son of Azariah, the son of Hilkiah. And you go down through there,
and down in verse 5 says this, verse 6, excuse me. This Ezra,
now he's a descendant of Aaron, goes all the way back to Aaron.
Verse 6, This Ezra went up from Babylon, and he was a ready scribe
in the law of Moses, which the Lord God of Israel had given
him. And the king granted unto him all his requests according
to the hand of the Lord God upon him. So he brought out a great
big group with him. So there's not a whole lot of
people that comes up. And then Ezra has a prayer, and
he prays in chapter 9. And this is one of the most remarkable
prayers of repentance that you'll ever find in the Bible, other
than Daniel, how he prayed over there. But in this prayer, in
Ezra 9, we'll see the cause of Israel's trouble. You'll see
the whole cause of Israel's trouble, and the cause of anybody's trouble.
Now, this is Ezra praying. He comes to Jerusalem, he prays
unto God, he confesses sins after sins. Now, when these things
were done, The princess came to me saying, the people of Israel
and the priest and the Levites have not separated themselves
from the people of the lands. That's the first thing God told
them to do. He said, don't you mix and mingle with these people
because you'll end up worshiping their gods. And that's why believers
are not supposed to marry unbelievers. That's the very reason one of
you is going to have to give up. One of these is going to
have to compromise. And I say, who's going to compromise?
The unconverted one's not going to compromise. And only the one
who's going to compromise is the one who's converted. But
look what happens here now. And they've got separate doing
according to the abominations, even of the Canaanites, the Hittites,
the Perizzites, the Jebusites, the Ammonites, the Moabites,
the Egyptians, and the Amorites. For they have taken of their
daughters for themselves and for their sons. Now listen to
it, "...so that the holy seed have mingled themselves with
the people of those lands. Yea, the hand of the princes
and rulers hath been chief in this trespass." Now, that's the
cause of Israel's trouble. When it talks about the sons
of God went into the daughters of men over there, everybody
speculates about that. All that means is it was God's
men, God's people, God's people who worshiped God, went and took
women after the flesh, and they was not converted women, and
that's what they're talking about, the sons of God. We're called
the sons of God. And that's all that means, but
oh, that's the cause of Israel's trouble. And then look how it
says down here in chapter 3 and verse 4, look how Ezra reacts
to these. Ezra 9, chapter 9 and verse 3,
we're there in chapter 9, look at verse 3 and 4 with me. And
look how Ezra, and when I heard this thing, when they came and
told him this thing, about how they mingled with all these people
and their gods, and had defiled themselves, and the Holy Seed
mingled themselves with the peoples. The people, the rulers were keeping
this treachery. When I heard this thing, first
thing I did, I ripped my garment. I ripped my garment. And when
they ripped their garment, that shows, beloved, that there's
great grief. That there's great sin. And I
took off my mantle. I even ripped my mantle. That's
the coat that goes over his robe. And I plucked off the hair of
my head. I said, I shaved my head. And
I shaved my beard and I sat down astonished. Then were assembled
unto me every one that trembled at the words of the God of Israel. Remember where it says, God said,
He is with that man who trembles at the word of God. He said,
He that trembles at my word, he is of a broken, contrite spirit.
That's the man whom I look to. And he says, those men were assembled
unto me, every one that trembled at the words of the God of Israel
because of the transgression of those that had been carried
away, and I said, Astonished unto the evening sacrifice. And
then you can start listening to him begin to pray. And what
a prayer it was. Oh, how he prayed. And then he
said, Oh, my God. He said in verse six, just to
give you an idea of what he said. fell upon my knees, spread my
hands out unto the Lord my God, and said, O my God, I am ashamed
and blushed to lift up my face to Thee, my God." He's like that
publican. I can't even lift up my eyes.
For our iniquities are increased over our heads and our trespasses
have grown up into the heavens. You notice he didn't say their
sins and their trespasses, he says ours. He says it's all of
us. All of us. And you can go down
through there, and oh my, what a prayer this man prayed. But now turn back over in chapter
1. Let's start over here in just
a minute, and let's look at a thing or two. Not only to receive a
message in how that they were brought up in Ezra's prayer,
in Ezra's condition. They were brought back out of
captivity. Is there a battle of all 50,000? I don't know how
many as were brought, but you can find out. But then look how
faithful God is. In chapter 1, we learn something
about the character of God himself. It says here in verse 1, Now
in the first year of Cyrus, king of Persia, that the word of the
Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah might be fulfilled, the Lord
stirred up the spirit of Cyrus, king of Persia, that he made
a proclamation throughout all the kingdom, and he put it in
writing. And then he goes on to say down
here, you know, it says down in verse 3, Who is there among
you all his people? His God be with him, and let
him go up to Jerusalem, which is in Judah, and build the house
of the Lord God. Now watch this. For he is the
God which is in Jerusalem. Of all the gods they are, he
said he is the God which is in Jerusalem. The Lord God of Israel,
he is the God. And Cyrus' decree, we'll see
this here in a minute. is one of the greatest, most
glorious displays of the inspiration and infallibility of God's blessed
scriptures that you could ever imagine. It's just incredible. Seventy years had come to pass,
and Jeremiah had already told them that these people would
be delivered. Jeremiah 25 said, And this land will be desolate
and astonished, but these nations shall serve the King of Babylon
seventy years. And then he says in chapter 29,
For thus saith the Lord God, that after seventy years be accomplished
in Babylon, I will visit you, and perform my good word toward
you, and causing you to return to this place. The kiss and calling
of God are without repentance. In almost two hundred years,
now look over in Isaiah. You keep Ezra, and look in Isaiah
44 and 45. I want you to look in Isaiah
45. Now almost two hundred years, before they ever went into captivity.
200 years. Isaiah not only spoke about Israel's
deliverance out of Babylon, but he made the man who would deliver
them and the means by which he would do it. 200 years before
it ever took place. God named the man and gave him
his name. And he was born 200 years later,
and they said, we're going to name him Cyrus. Why are you going
to name him Cyrus? Because look what he said here.
In verse 28 of chapter 44. That saith the Cyrus, he is my
shepherd, and shall perform all my pleasure, even saying to Jerusalem,
thou shalt be built, and to the temple, thou foundation shalt
be laid. And that's exactly what happened.
Now watch this. Thus saith the Lord to his anointed, to Cyrus,
whose right hand I am holding, to subdue nations before him,
I will loose the loins of kings, to open for him the two leaf
gates, and the gates shall not be shut. He said, now he named
Cyrus. And who was it here in the first
year of Cyrus? Two hundred years later. There
he is, he's born. He's the one who made the decree.
Go back up to Jerusalem. The Lord God told me, y'all go
back up there and you rebuild your temple, build your altar,
and worship your God. And not only did He do that,
but He gave them all the means to do it with. And He wrote in
a decree about it. So I mean 200 years and how He
would save them. And you can go through that and
see how clearly it is. And you talking about a display. Now, 200 years, call a man's
name. You're going to be my shepherd. You're going to be the one that's
going to set my people back up to Jerusalem, and they're going
to lay the foundation and put up the altar." Told his name. And oh, what a display of God's
absolute sovereignty. What in the world would cause
a pagan king, and he's a pagan king now. You remember Nebuchadnezzar
and Darius, how they mistreated the children of Israel? How he
put up his great statue and told everybody to bow down to it.
Forbid them to pray and Daniel prayed. Now, Caesar Darius, you know,
made a decree. And Daniel, he didn't know how
to do it. He saved Daniel when he went
into the lion's den and on and on and on. They just tried to
mistreat God's people and tried to catch them in a thousand ways.
But God always preserves His elect. But oh, what would cause
a pagan king, a Babylonian king, to show kindness and mercy to
a people who have been the slaves in his kingdom for seventy years? And he had absolutely nothing
to gain. Nothing to gain. Huh? And he had much to lose by doing
it. There's only one answer. The
king's heart is in the hand of the Lord, just like the river
is, and he turns it with us everywhere. God still raises up kings and
sets down kings, and he does all this for his elect, for his
elect, salvation of his elect. And oh, what a blessed example
of God's faithfulness. God's always faithful to his
word. He promised to bring Jerusalem
up out of Babylon after 70 years. And He did. Now listen to me
right here. They had forsaken Him, but God
never forsook them. Huh? The Lord God of Israel,
He is God. Oh, how many times has the Lord...
You know, that's why our Lord said, you know, He said, We may
deny Him, but He abides faithful. He cannot deny Himself. And you
find men and women in the Scripture dead With all the sin he committed,
he was still God's child. Noah, when he was naked and drunk
in the tent, he was still God's child. Lot, when he took his
family down to Sodom, he was still God's elect. And God has
a way of dealing... When Peter denied the Lord, he
was still God's blessed child. When Paul shaved his head and
went into the temple, knowing that it was the wrong thing to
do, and ended up in jail and in prison, beaten half to death,
he's still God's child. Still God's child. And oh, what
faithfulness. And then, but I'll tell you what
he does. He is so faithful that he chastises his people. And
that's what the 70 years in Babylon's for, to chastise his people.
It's not to destroy them. And when God chastises us, it's
not to destroy us, but it's to refine us. That's why David,
when he got down on his deathbed, he says, the Lord has made with
me, it may not be with my house. I failed my house, I failed my
sons. I've given the occasion of the
Lord's enemies a time to say things against God. But he says,
it may not be with my house, but the Lord hath made with me
an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things, and is sure, this
is all my salvation, this is all that I desire, is this blessed
covenant, this mercy, this salvation that God give me in Christ. And
God will chastise his people, not to destroy us, but to refine
us all on gold, thy draughts to consume and thy gold to refine,
as the old hymn writer said. And Judah fell captive down in
Israel. And it was because they had fallen
captive to their own lusts. But the Lord didn't destroy them.
He restored them, brought them back out. And in restoring them,
the thing that He was using to destroy them, now He's going
to use the same people to enrich them and cause them to build
the thing back. Look over here in chapter 6 and verse 4. Here
they are battling. These are the people that took
them captive, and even the people that had threatened to destroy
them now, all the expenses needed for the restoration was given
out of the king's house in Babylon. Look what he says down here in
verse four. With three rows of gray stones and a row of new
timber, and let the expenses be given out of the king's house. The king of Babylon, the heathen
king, said, I want to go back there. But I'm going to pay for
it. So God chooses the foolish to
compound the wise, and the weak to compound the mighty. And that's
just one instance of it. And beloved, I'll tell you what,
we may separate ourselves from God, and I do know this, we'll
never return to Him if He doesn't turn to us. The only ones who
came back to Jerusalem, was, it says in chapter one and verse
five, whose spirit the Lord has turned up. Lord, turn us, and
we shall be turned. Save us, and we shall be saved.
And he says, Lord, I don't know. It's not in man to direct his
own steps, and that's why we say, Lord, You direct us. You lead us. You guide us. And
the first thing here in chapter three, look at this with me real
quick. Chapter three. The first thing, chapter 3, verses
2 and 3, the first thing that Zerubbabel did actually brought
Israel back to Jerusalem was to build God's altar. Look what
he says, chapter 3, verse 2, Then stood up Joshua, the son
of Jehozadak, and his brethren, the priests, and Zerubbabel,
the son of Sheltiah and his brethren, and building the altar of God
in Israel to offer burnt offerings to their own. That is written
in the law of Moses, the man of God. And they set the altar
upon his faces. The fear was upon them because
of the people of those countries, and they offered burnt offerings
to their own unto the Lord, even burnt offerings morning and evening.
The first thing he restored when he got back there was the altar.
And that's the first thing that God always brings us to when
He restores us and brings us and stirs us up. He causes us
to turn to our altar. He causes us to turn to the Lord
Jesus Christ and offer sacrifices of praise and thanksgiving and
repentance on Christ our altar. That's the first thing God does.
He brings us to Christ and the great sacrifice He offered on
that altar. And then the second thing they did, down in verse
10 here of chapter 3, was lay the foundation of the temple.
Look what it says here in chapter 3 and verse 10. And when the
builders laid the foundation of the temple of the Lord, they
sent the priests in their apparel, with trumpets and the Levites,
the sons of Asaph, with cymbals, to praise the Lord after the
ordinance of David the king of Israel. And they sang together
by chorus in praising and giving thanks unto God. They went around
the building, sang and praised, sang and praised, by chorus. and giving thanks because He
is good, for His mercy endueth forever. And all the people shouted
with a great shout when they praised the Lord. Listen, because
the foundation of the house of the Lord was laid. Let's sing
praises and say unto God, His mercy endueth forever. The foundation
is laid. And there's no other foundation
can be laid than that's laid, which is Christ Jesus, our Lord,
and we're built upon that foundation. Christ is that foundation. God
said, I laid it down for a foundation, a stone, a tribestone, a precious
cornerstone. That's the second thing they
did. And oh, and this is what happens now. There was a lot
of different feelings about this, but many of the priests and Levites
are the chief of the fathers. Now listen, verse 12, who were
ancient men. They have seen that first house.
They have seen that house that Solomon had made. They have seen
the glory of it. They have seen the sacrifices.
They have seen the priests in all their robes. Those ancient
men have seen that first house, the house that When the foundation of this house
was laid before their eyes, and they saw this foundation relayed,
they wept with a loud voice, because it was not anything like
the glory that was before. And then others and many shouted
aloud for joy, so that people could not discern the noise of
the shout of joy from the noise of the weeping of the people.
For the people shouted with a loud shout, and the noise was heard
afar off. Because this foundation is nothing like the foundation
of that first house, and the glory that was in that first
house. And they wept over that, and others shouted and rejoiced
because it had been laid. And that's not the way of true
repentance. Bitter is always mixed with the sweet. And the
third thing, and I want you to see this here in chapter four.
The third thing. First thing, they built God's
altar. Then they laid the foundation.
The third thing that happened was the adversaries of Judah
and Benjamin tried to frustrate their work and turn them away
from God again. And they were Samaritans. Now
look what it says here in chapter 4 and verse 1. Now, when the
adversaries of Judah and Benjamin heard that the children of the
captivity built the temple under the Lord God of Israel. Now,
they're the adversaries now. Then they came to Zerubbabel,
and to the chief of the fathers, and said unto them, Let us build
with him. For we secure God as you do,
and we do sacrifice unto him since the days of Azrahadon,
king of Assyria, which brought us up. But, oh my, they pretend
to be free as one of the help, But look what Osura Bababel said,
Osura Bababel and Joshua and the rest of the chief of the
fathers of Israel said, you have nothing to do with us to build
that house under our God. But we ourselves will build under
the Lord God of Israel as the king of Cyrus, the king of Persia,
has commanded us. Watch this now. Then the people
of the land weakened the hands of the people of Judah and troubled
them in building and hired counselors again to frustrate their purpose. all the days they were doing
it. When you take your hand to live to the glory of God, and
to do the will of God, you're going to find somebody, and mostly
it'll be your flesh that will try to talk you out of it. Huh? Try to frustrate the work. You'll
have the best, wonderfulest day, and you'll worship God, and I'll
meet you when I get to the house, and something will happen. You'll
get some news, and it'll just go, whoo! You'll be rejoicing in the afternoon,
you may be weeping. Somebody's always there to hinder
the work, to hinder the worship. And that's what happened was.
And beloved, and I'll tell you, they tried to delay the work
and everything in us by nature. We're trying to delay the work.
But these Samaritans, they have no part in the worship of God,
and they have no part in the work of God. And we must never,
ever lean to the flesh to do God's work at His will. Never going to go to the world,
not going to go to the flesh, not going to trust nobody but
God to do His work. And then let me wind this up. This is a good one tonight. I
enjoyed this so much today. But let me tell you about God's
method of grace. God always accomplishes his purpose
of grace. He sent him down into captivity,
70 years. He said, I will bring you back
up in 70 years. He told the name of the king
that would make the decree and bring him back up 200 years before
they was brought back up. Told his name. God always accomplishes
his purpose, and he always does it using human instruments. Men
and women like you and me. And there's nothing that displays
God's sovereignty more than the use of the means He chooses to
accomplish His determined purpose, His predetermined... You look
at what they've done to our Lord Jesus Christ. Men have done just
exactly what they wanted to do, carrying out God's predetermined
purpose. But they did what God predetermined
for them to have done. But they've done just... You
know, Pilate said, Will it, to content the people. He said,
I'll let him go. But the people didn't will it. You know why the people didn't
will it? Because it's God's purpose. And God sent him down there,
and God's purpose, and he used Cyrus to bring them up. And Cyrus
issued this decree, you know why? Because God, and it says
in chapter 1, verse 1, God put it in his heart. He said, the
Lord God put it in his heart. And those who return, return
because God stirred up their hearts to return. It says in
chapter 1 verse 5. And oh, you got to see here,
chapter 7 verse 9. Oh, you'll love this. And Ezra
succeeded and help him build Jerusalem,
rebuild it, build the walls and put the gates back up. Ezra succeeded
because the good hand of the Lord was upon him. Look what
it says in verse 9. For upon the first day of the
first month began he to go up from Babylon, and on the first
day of the fifth month came he to Jerusalem according to the
good hand of his God upon him. the good hand of his God upon
him. Oh, my! You say, well, God's
different back then. No, He ain't. The good hand of
God's on us, and He put His hand on us in His blessed Son. And
oh, then Artaxerxes, after Cyrus has died, after Cyrus is gone,
and another king is raised up, Artaxerxes. He supported the
work of rebuilding the temple because the Lord put it in his
heart to do so. Look in verse 27 of chapter 7. Oh, he said, Blessed be the Lord
God of our fathers, which has put such a thing as this in the
king's heart to beautify the house of the Lord, which is in
Jerusalem. God put it in the heathen king's
heart to beautify. And the Lord showed favor to
this nation in repentance, because Ezra prayed, but God put the
prayer in his heart. He said, God moved in his heart.
And God raised up two prophets. I've done read them to you. Haggai and Zechariah. You know,
there's a book named after Haggai, Zechariah, Zerubbabel, and Joshua,
and Ezra, all of them mentioned that. God raised up two prophets
in these days, Haggai and Zechariah, to prophesy. Just look at it
with me real quick. In verse 1 of chapter 5, He raised
up two prophets, Haggai and Zechariah. Then the prophets, chapter 1,
chapter 5, verse 1, Then the prophets Haggai the prophet and
Zechariah the son of Esau prophesied unto the Jews that were in Judah
and Jerusalem in the name of God even unto them. He raised
up two prophets to prophesy unto these people and to move them
to the Word. And I'll tell you something about
that. God always, always instructs and directs His people by His
Word. He had prophets there to tell those folks what to do.
And it's through the preaching of those sent by Him to proclaim
His Word that He saves His people. Huh? And oh, that's why the Scripture
said, How beautiful upon the mountain are the feet of them
that publish Glad tidings of good things the saith unto Zion
by God reign. Whosoever shall call upon the
name of the Lord shall be saved. How then shall they call on him
of whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe on
him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without
a preacher? And how shall they preach except they be sinned?
And all beloved, and I'll tell you in closing, you know when
those folks come up out of Babylon in captivity? At exactly. the time God purposed and promised. Exactly at the time God purposed
and promised. And I'll tell you something.
Let me show you this, and then I'm done. Chapter 9, verse 8 and 9. God's
grace is sufficient to supply all of our needs, to preserve
us and to keep us where He puts us. And it's always sufficient
to enable us to perform the work that he gives us to do. Look
here in chapter 9, verse 8 and 9. And now for a little space. Grace has been showed from the
Lord our God to leave us a remnant to escape. Now listen. And to
give us a nail in his holy place, that our God may lighten our
eyes and give us a little reviving in our bondage. For we were bondmen,
yet our God hath not forsaken us in our bondage, but hath extended
mercy unto us in the sight of the kings of Persia, to give
us a reviving, to set up the house of our God, to repair the
desolations thereof, and to give us a home." Oh my, a little grace been given
to us, revived us a little. Going to stir his house up. Oh, bless his name. I enjoyed that very much. I hope
you did.