Well, we've been looking for
a number of weeks at the building of the temple, the rebuilding
of the temple in Jerusalem after the Babylonian exile. Remember
the original temple of Solomon, this magnificent building that
kings and queens used to come to look at, the wisdom of Solomon
and the splendor of the kingdom of Solomon. There was this magnificent
temple that God permitted Solomon to build and idolatry crept in
and the kingdom was divided. And because of their idolatry,
God carried out that which he had threatened them, that they
would be taken away into captivity. Jeremiah says, for 70 years you
will go into captivity in Babylon. And the day came when Nebuchadnezzar,
the Babylonian king, and his forces came and overran, and
they utterly destroyed Jerusalem. They took all the things that
were valuable, all the gold and silver vessels, they took from
that temple, they took them away to Babylon, and they flattened
the temple. That glorious building was destroyed,
and nothing of it remained. Jerusalem itself was a ruin. And the people went away into
captivity, and they were there for seventy years, because God
does that which He says. As he did in the days of Noah,
God said he would bring a flood upon the earth and they just
carried on marrying and giving in marriage and living their
lives as if nothing mattered. And the day came when God shut
his people. and the life that he was to preserve
into the ark, and he shut them in. And then the waters came
and carried them all away. And the scriptures tell us, as
it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be. God does that which
he says he will do. And he did, he carried them away.
But he had also said, 200 years before, that he would raise up
an emperor, Cyrus, he even gave him his name. I will raise up
Cyrus and he shall be my instrument because he will bring you back
to rebuild this temple, this Jerusalem. And so at the end
of 70 years, Nebuchadnezzar and those that followed him had had
their way and had ruled as the golden head of that great statue
in Nebuchadnezzar's dream and in a night in Belshazzar's feast
when they were having what we might call a booze up with the
vessels from the temple in Jerusalem all those gold and silver things
they really threw all caution to the wind and they were having
this drinking party Belshazzar's feast and the finger came and
wrote on the wall you are weighed in the balances and you are found
wanting and in that night when they were all reveling and partying
and thinking that things would go on forever the Persians came
and Cyrus came and they got in exactly the way the scriptures
said and they overran the city and in that night the Babylonian
Empire was overrun by the Persian Empire and Cyrus This pagan king
who knew nothing of the God of heaven and knew nothing of the
truth of the scriptures said, God has laid upon me a burden
to build him a temple in which can be true worship in Jerusalem.
Who is there of you Jews here? Go back, I'll give you letters,
I'll give you a commission to go and do that which is necessary."
And they came back. Zerubbabel, who was the rightful
heir to the throne of Judah, Zerubbabel, and Jeshua, the rightful
heir to the role of high priest in Jerusalem. Such a picture
of Christ. Prophet, priest, and king. Go
back to Jerusalem, reestablish temple worship, have all the
means that you need, all the resources of my great kingdom,
said this pagan king, Cyrus, I'll give it to you to go and
reestablish the temple there in Jerusalem. And so they went. And we've seen how they started
building and they made a good start and they laid the foundation
and then the work stopped. and the work stopped for the
best part of 20 years. Think what we've learned so far.
You know, I'm talking to those of you who are believers this
morning and feeling very, very small and insignificant in this
world which seems to grow more godless in its philosophy every
day that goes by. Think what we've learned so far.
Because all of these Old Testament things were written, as we saw
last week, for our learning. That's what they were written
for. They speak of Christ. What's the Old Testament about?
These are they, said Jesus, which speak of me. If they say anything
outside of Christ, that's not the message of Scripture. They
declare God's mystery. You know, God says his gospel
is a mystery that he declares. It's hidden from the world. They
don't see it, they don't understand it, but he reveals it, he says,
in Colossians 1.26, he reveals it to his saints. This is sovereign
grace. This is biblical doctrine. The
rebuilding of the temple has much to teach us. What has it
taught us so far? God is sovereign. Are you worried
about the state of the world? God is sovereign over kings.
And by kings I mean all powers and rule. God is sovereign. God
orders all these events. Shouldn't you be worried about
anything? God is sovereign over the most powerful in the world.
Did you hear that? God is sovereign over the most
powerful in the world. He is the one who raises up his
instruments. Where did Cyrus come from? God
raised him up. How do we know? God said he would
raise him up. What did God do? God raised him up because God
had said it. Then they went back to Jerusalem. Think about the
gospel. What must we preserve? What was
the first thing they did? They laid the foundation. A solid
foundation for the temple must be laid. And what is our foundation?
They put the chief cornerstone in place against which the whole
temple would be built. What's the chief cornerstone?
Our Lord Jesus Christ. He is the chief cornerstone.
There is no doctrine, there is no church, there is no salvation,
there is no knowledge of God outside of Him. And then what
did they do? They set up an altar, that there
might be sacrifice. Because sinners cannot approach
God. How can I approach God? How can a man be just with God? How can I get close to God? How
can I be accepted? Why do I need to be accepted?
Because I'm mortal. And I see people dying all around
me. Sooner or later, everybody dies. I know it's appointed to
man to die once, and then comes the judgment. We must all stand
before the judgment seat of Christ, and receive the things done in
the body. And you will either receive them in your own body,
or you will be in Christ. And you will look to Him, and
see that He has received them already. The fire of God's wrath
has already fallen on him for his people. Has he brought you
to believe it? Has he given you faith to believe
it? Because if he has, you're amongst those whom he chose in
Christ before the foundation of the world. A solid foundation
must be laid. Acceptable sacrifice must be
offered. They had to offer acceptable
sacrifice and it must be done on the site of the temple in
Jerusalem. Nowhere else. What is that to
us? There is no other acceptable
sacrifice for sin than our Lord Jesus Christ, who died on the
cross of Calvary in the place of his people, for his people,
and his people died in him. For, says Paul, I am crucified
with Christ. I am crucified. I, the old me,
is crucified with Christ. Nevertheless I live, yet not
I, but Christ lives in me. acceptable sacrifice must be
offered. We've learned all of these things from this picture
of the temple being rebuilt. We learned last time that purity
must be maintained. Surely we could do with some
help, we're so small. No, they refused to build with
those that offered help because those that offered help had one
purpose, to stop the reestablishment of gospel picturing worship in
the temple in Jerusalem. No, we must maintain purity. even if it means, as in some
cases it has, being a solitary believer, on your own, at home,
because you will not go and mix with those in idolatrous religion.
What is idolatrous religion? Sometimes it has the name Reformed
Baptist Church outside the door, and it's idolatrous religion,
because it's false. It is not the gospel of this
book, it is a gospel of man-made thinking. Here's another lesson. God ordains and permits trials
and setbacks for his people. He does it. Where do these things
come from? Oh dear, wringing hands worried
to death, what am I going to do? God ordains these things. The trials and troubles, the
The frustration, it says in verse 4 of chapter 4 of Ezra, the people
of the land weakened the hands of the people of Judah and troubled
them in building. Do you know it's all ordained
by God? It's all in the permissive will
of God. Everything is all for his people's good. When God says
he causes all things to work together for good to those that
love God, who are the called according to his purpose, it's
because he's sovereign over everything. And in our circumstances, he
orders trials for us. Who initiated? Who initiated
the trials that Job went through? Who initiated them? God said
to Satan, Satan, have you considered my servant, Job? I'll let you
go and do this much to him. God initiated it. God ordains
and permits trials and setbacks for his people. And finally,
he most certainly, whatever it feels like now, he most certainly
will finish the work of bringing all of his elect to glory because
that's what the temple pictures when it's finished. And the headstone
is brought forth. And Zerubbabel, who is such a
picture of Christ, puts that headstone in place. It may not
look like it's going to be finished, that the God of the universe,
whatever he says he will do, he does it. The record of history
is that he has done it. The confidence that we have as
his believing people is that he will definitely do it. Now
I want to look at the account without looking verse by verse,
you can read it for yourself at Ezra chapters 5 and 6 and
I just want briefly to bring out the high-level summary of
the historical account, what happened, and then I've got five
lessons for us based on it. So it's in chapters five and
six, and as I say, we'll just pick out the odd verse here and
there, but I just want to give you the historical account of
what happened, and then as it says all these things were written
for our learning, I've got five lessons for us. So Cyrus had
given his decree. Zerubbabel and Jeshua and a number
of others, a good number, had gone back to Jerusalem with full
authority of Cyrus. The foundation stone had been
laid, the site had been cleared and got ready, the altar had
been set up. Sacrifices in Jerusalem, blood
sacrifices, animal blood sacrifices. which picture the blood sacrifice
of the Son of God for the sins of his people, had been reestablished
there in Jerusalem. The Feast of Tabernacles had
been held. There was great rejoicing. After
all these years of exile, here we are, we're starting again.
You know what it's like when you start a new project? Whenever
you start a new project, there's a sense of great motivation and
excitement, and so there was. And they rejoiced greatly, and
there was crying of those old people that had seen the temple
before it was destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar. And now they thought they'd never
see it, but there they are, they're in their last years, and they're
seeing the foundation laid again to re-establish that glorious
temple. You know, it says that it wouldn't be anything like
the glory of the previous house. but nevertheless the glory of
the Lord would be there because this was the temple, this new
one, in which the Lord Jesus Christ would walk in years to
come. And they were so happy that they
got to this place And then they had the offer of help at the
start of chapter four. The offer of help that we saw
last week. Let us help you. No, you won't help us. And the
reason is because you're not on the same agenda as we are. You do not believe the same God. You do not believe the same promise. You do not believe the same gospel
of salvation that we do. You may use words which sound
like it. They said, We sacrifice to God
like you do, we do all of these things, we've done it ever since
we came back here, it's the same God, we seek your God, let's
all work together and then we'll all get on and be good friends
and won't we make a lovely society? No you won't. Because your gospel
is not the gospel that God has revealed. And you will not build
with us. You can listen to our gospel,
we'll preach it to anybody that'll hear. We look to the Holy Spirit
to save his people, but you will not build with us. We will not
be associated with your gospel of man-centered decisionism,
of subtly putting man in the driving seat, of salvation of
subtly changing your methods so that you acknowledge that
if anybody's going to be saved you have to appeal you have to
appeal to the reasonableness that's in the man of flesh and
then if you put that to him he'll exercise his duty to believe
that gospel that's not what this book says But anyway, they were
allowed to weaken the hands of the people, and the work ceased.
So verse 24 of chapter 4, then ceased the work of the house
of God, which is at Jerusalem. And so it ceased. So this is
while Cyrus was still on the throne, who'd given the commission,
but they so frustrated them. They upset the supply lines. They made it that they didn't
have the right materials at the right time. They caused all sorts
of problems for them. and the work ceased. And how
long did it cease? To the second year of the reign
of Darius, king of Persia. That's the best part of 20 years.
I'm not absolutely sure how we arrive at that history. You can
look at the kings that Ahasuerus that followed on, Artaxerxes,
whether that's a general name for kings or a separate one is
debatable, but there was a gap before Darius came to the throne,
the king of Persia, and it was the second year of his reign.
The work effectively ceased. And given that the work had ceased,
these people that had gone back to Jerusalem they settled into
kind of ordinary life in Jerusalem. They became quite comfortable.
You know, yes, the temple wasn't going ahead like they thought,
but hey, you know, we like it here, it's nice in Jerusalem.
Actually, the climate's better than it is in, you know, it's
quite comfortable, and, oh, you know, you can get on with building
your own house and making yourself quite comfortable, and actually,
we can do business here, and they settled into a nice, comfortable
life back in Jerusalem. And God raised up two prophets. Look at chapter 5 verse 1. The
prophets Haggai and Zechariah were raised up and prophesied
to the Jews. They came, thus says the Lord.
They came with the word of God. They came to stir them up from
their comfort. And if you read, and there's
no need to turn to it now, but if you read Haggai chapter 1
and verse 4, we read this. God says to the people by Haggai,
Is it time for you, O ye, meaning my people, to dwell in your sealed
houses, your nicely plastered houses, your comfortable houses,
and this house, the temple, lie waste? Is now that you're too
comfortable? Is now the time for you to be
comfortably sitting back in your nice sealed houses And this house,
the temple, lie in waste. Zechariah said, it will surely
be finished. Zechariah 4 verse 9, that was
the first verse we looked at in this series. It will surely
be finished. Zerubbabel, who brought forth
the foundation stone, will bring forth the headstone. Then rose
up, it says. Then rose up Zerubbabel, verse
2. Then rose up Zerubbabel, and
Jeshua, and began to build the house of God. The work started
again, and on it went. The new emperor, new governors
in the land, the governors that had caused them all the problems
in chapter four, there was a new set of governors, and a new emperor
in the capital of the Persian Empire. And these ones came to
Zerubbabel and Joshua, building the house of God, and they said,
what is it that you're doing? Who's given you permission to
do this? And these were a bit more reasonable than the previous
ones. They heard their story and they
told them, Zerubbabel and Joshua told them, this is what we're
doing, we're doing the decree of Cyrus. were doing the decree
that Cyrus gave us to reestablish worship back in Jerusalem, the
worship of the God of heaven. And so these people sent a letter
to Darius to say, is this true? Can you search in the records
of the kingdom? Did Cyrus really give these people
a commission to come and rebuild this temple? Is that what he
really did? You see, they were much more reasonable people.
And so they sent the letter, chapter six, Verse 1, then Darius
the king made a decree and search was made in the house of the
rolls, the records. where the treasures were laid
up in Babylon. And there was found at Akmithah in the palace
that is in the province of the Medes a roll, and therein was
a record thus written. And so it was, Cyrus's commission
to them to go back to Jerusalem and reestablish worship was found,
and Darius said right. That's what's going to happen.
Give them everything that they need. Because look at verse 10
of chapter 6. This was the reason. Give them
everything they need that they may offer sacrifices of sweet
savors unto the God of heaven and pray for the life of the
king and his sons. But that was the purpose. That
worship, true worship, might be established. They may offer
sacrifices of sweet savors unto the God of heaven. What is a
sacrifice of sweet savours? What is that sacrifice of sweet
savours? It's the gospel of His grace
in the Lord Jesus Christ. You know when Noah came out of
the ark and the world had been destroyed, the first thing that
he did was to build an altar. And what did God smell? A sweet-smelling
savour. Because it spoke of Christ. What
is the sweet-smelling savour? It's of justice satisfied. In the nostrils of God he smells
justice satisfied. Satisfaction has been made. His
law has been entirely upheld. His justice has been entirely
satisfied. It's a sweet smell. It says in
Ephesians chapter 5 and verse 2, that the gospel is a sweet-smelling
savour in the nostrils of God. Here it is! This is what the
temple was all about, and the worship and the sacrifices. It was the gospel. Re-established
gospel-centred worship, that which God accepts, that which
God does, the worship and praise of the living God. And in Ezra
chapter 6 and verse 15, we read that this house was finished. They did it. With the full support
of Darius and all of his kingdom, they finished it. And worship
was re-established. The priests, they sacrificed,
they dedicated the temple. And there was great rejoicing.
Look at verse 22 of chapter six. They kept the feast of unleavened
bread seven days with joy. Oh, this religious stuff, it's
so boring. And I suppose we've got to go
through it. Oh dear, I don't know. If only we could do things
that really make people feel happy. turned on and yeah this
made them joyful if you know that it is well with your soul
if you can lie you down and sleep as psalm 4 says peacefully because
you know that if you meet God tonight you will meet, you will
hear that welcome. Enter into the joy that has been
prepared for you from before the foundation. If you know that,
you're joyful. You have true, deep, personal
joy in your heart. All these choruses singing about
give me joy in my heart, keep me burning and all this, it's
just titivation because of the music and the atmosphere. But
if you know when you're on your own, When you're on your own,
you know joy, peace in your heart because of the gospel of grace,
because of those things that give you peace with God and confidence
that the God of the universe is looking over everything that
you do for good. It says, he turned the heart
of the king of Assyria, that's Darius again, because he was
the king of Assyria as well, to strengthen their hands in
the work of the house of God. So, there was trouble, but chapters
five and six, God raised up preachers, Haggai, Zechariah, to preach,
to stir them up. This is what's needed. You mustn't
just sit comfortably in your comfortable houses when the church
of the living God and the gospel of his grace is in ruins. Let's
do something about it. Let's get going, was the motivation. So then, what are the lessons
for us? I've got five. First of all, think about their
purpose and our purpose. Compare their purpose and our
purpose. Their purpose was to rebuild
the temple with all of its gospel symbolism. It had a holiest of
holies where dwelt the presence of the living God. The presence
of the living God on earth today is to be found in the gospel
of the Lord Jesus Christ and nowhere else. Doesn't matter
where you meet, two or three in his name means on the basis
of the gospel of his sovereign grace and effectual particular
redemption and he says there am I he says you are in you know
when Jesus said that where two or three are gathered in my name
there am I in the midst do you know what he's saying you're
where the high priest used to go in the temple. You're in the
holiest of holies. You're in the holiest place of
all. You cannot, we sing that hymn that says, nearer to Jesus
I cannot be. In the person of his son, nearer
I cannot be. You're in his presence, in the
temple, which is his church, which is that temple that he's
building, that spiritual temple. You're there. You have an altar,
as Hebrews 13 tells us. We have an altar. It's our Lord
Jesus Christ. He's the place where acceptable
sacrifice was made. He is. He shed his blood on Calvary. Calvary, that lump of wood, is
not our altar. It's just the place in history,
the time in history where it had to be done. God must come
into history, and at a particular time, as the Word says, in that
day will He put an end to sacrifice. In that day will He deal with
the sins of His people. In that one day He did. He shed
His blood there, and we have an altar, the Lord Jesus Christ. We have blood sacrifice. We have
that which is acceptable. The life is in the blood. The
soul that sins, it shall die. Its life shall be poured out,
the Son of God, the infinite Son of God. His life was poured
out for His people, on behalf of His people. The atonement
was made. Those who were separated were
brought at one, together. The satisfied law was there in
the Ark of the Covenant, with the mercy seat of propitiation
above that law in the Ark of the Covenant. As we come together,
We come to the mercy seat. And there, in the sprinkled blood
of the Lord Jesus Christ, we have that sitting over a law
which is completely satisfied. The law has nothing to say to
us. It has nothing to demand of us. It causes us no anguish
or concern. It is not our rule by which we
live. It is not the law by which we will be judged. We are judged
in Christ. He has fulfilled it perfectly.
He is the righteousness of God, and he has made his people the
righteousness of God in him. And we have acceptance. You know,
the temple was all about the acceptance of God's chosen people,
symbolized by that Israelite nation, the descendants of Abraham.
And this is what the gospel says, to the elect of God. Who are
the elect of God? We're bound to give thanks to
God for you, brethren. Beloved of the Lord, for he has
from the beginning chosen you to salvation, How do I know?
Through sanctification of the Spirit, He set you apart from
this world. And how else do I know? Belief of the truth. When the
Gospel came to you, what manner of entry we had unto you. There
was no barrier there in the way like there is with mankind in
general, but you, some of you, what manner of entry this Word
had unto you. you believed it there it was
it was the most reasonable thing that which that which others
despise was the most reasonable thing to hear and to believe
this is all about the key question of life, of God, of holiness. These are the issues that are
really important, of sin, of the strict justice of the God
of the universe, of our certain death, of judgment to come, of
righteous condemnation. How can God save anyone from
his justice while being consistent with his holiness? This is the
question, you must face it. He did it by becoming his people's
substitute, by paying their sin debt, by making them the holiness
that God requires, so that he is a just God and a Savior, so
that he is just and the justifier whose faith is in the Lord Jesus
Christ. Their purpose was building the
temple. Ours is that that gospel That gospel alone must be preached
and proclaimed. The gospel of Christ must be
central to all that we seek to do. Just as their purpose was
get this temple built, our purpose is get this message preached.
If it's silenced everywhere else, let it be. If God so will that
at least here that gospel will be preached and pray God that
he will raise up preachers to preach it in other places too.
The church must be built and how? By the foolishness of preaching,
it pleased God to save those that believe. Secondly, there
was no opposition when the temple wasn't being built. When they'd
successfully stopped it and they'd all settled back into their comfortable
domestic lives, there was no opposition. So it is with us. Things will go swimmingly well
if the gospel is not preached. Those people were only opposed
when they were engaged in temple building. While they were sitting
in their comfortable houses, there was no problem at all.
You can get on with your religion in private, just don't build
this temple. Don't reinstitute these animal sacrifice. Don't
do this in Jerusalem. Don't preach that gospel of sovereign
grace and particular redemption. Paul said in Galatians chapter
5 verse 11, he says, and I, brethren, if I yet preach circumcision,
religion, if I yet preach just religion as the world understands
it, why do I yet suffer persecution? Then is the offense of the cross
ceased. He suffered persecution for the
offense of the cross. What's the offense of the cross?
The offense of the cross is this, that for you and me, sinners
before God, to be right with Him, it must be that God the
Sovereign, in grace, has chosen us in Christ, that God the Sovereign,
in mercy, has laid all our sins and ours alone, His peoples alone,
on the Lord Jesus Christ, and that He has paid for those sins,
and that He will most definitely save His people, and that is
the offense of the cross. I don't like that. That doesn't
give everybody an equal chance, that's not fair. If God gave
everybody an equal chance, everybody of their own volition would go
to hell. That's the truth. That's the truth of scripture.
You may like it or not, but if he's brought you to believe him,
you'll like it because it's what he says. It's the gospel of his
grace. No, there was no opposition if
the gospel wasn't preached. Robert Hawker said this about
this passage, Satan never rages at the preaching of flimsy morality
because it never did make anyone moral. That sort of preaching
which is just law-based flimsy morality Satan never got upset
about that. If we just preach religion, morality,
reformation of society, these themes that you've heard in other
churches that call themselves evangelical, that's all I ever
seem to hear when I'm on holiday if I go anywhere else, religion,
morality, reformation of society, let's go on a march to protest
about the Catholics being allowed to do this, all that sort of
rubbish achieves absolutely nothing. Satan's not bothered about that.
If you go along with that, which is not exactly the biblical gospel
of sovereign grace and particular redemption, Satan's undisturbed. He's not bothered. The society
and the world around us is content to let it be. They almost respect
you for being dedicated to your religion. But the moment you
preach sovereign grace and particular redemption, you're sidelined
by everybody. This is suspicious. This doesn't
fit in with mainstream. Even the religious world will
start slinging accusations against you. Oh, you're hyper-Calvinists.
You're exclusive. You don't want this to be known
by anybody else. Oh, and you must therefore be
antinomian. You live terrible lives. Oh,
you people lived absolutely dreadful lives, like I was telling you,
the report I heard. of those people that are so dear
to us and so well known to us, and of such impeccable, impeccable
moral character and substance, and yet how slandered they have
been by those that call themselves religious. No, if the gospel
isn't being preached, the world's not bothered, but the moment
the gospel's being preached, they'll do everything they can,
in their power, to weaken the hands of those that preach it.
And thirdly, When the gospel is preached, the opposition to
it is irrational. What harm would it have done
those people to have the temple re-established in Jerusalem?
What harm would it have done them? None whatsoever. Think
about it, it wouldn't. Why did they want to stop it?
Because they were instruments in the hands of Satan, doing
his will. He wanted to stop it. Why? Because
it's the only way men and women will know that there is acceptance
with God. That's why he doesn't want the
gospel preached. It's the only way, the true gospel, is the
only way men and women will be right with God. So they did all
they could to stop it, to stop the work happening. They wrote
letters to the highest powers. They said subtly, deceitfully,
that their intention was to protect the interests of the king. You
know, this lot have been a rebellious lot in the past. They won't pay
their taxes. They'll rise up in rebellion
against you. You better stop them now. We're not really bothered
about ourselves. It's you, oh king, that we're
trying to protect, you see? All these appeals to bigger authorities,
what they really wanted was the re-establishment of gospel-pictured
worship to be stopped. They didn't want it to go ahead.
They said they were maintaining the king's power, and they falsely
accused the builders. They attributed false motives
to them, of sedition and rebellion, and they brought powerful opposition
to bear, and the weight of the kingdom behind it. And so it
is now, if the true gospel is preached, What's attributed to
those that preach the true gospel? False doctrine. You're hyper-Calvinists. You're antinomians. You're characterized
as unpatriotic. You're characterized as unconventional,
and a narrow sect, with strange doctrine, with foolish doctrine,
as far as the natural man's concerned, because it is to the Greeks,
foolishness. To a stumbling block doctrine,
to the religious man, because to the Jews, the gospel is a
stumbling block. That stone, a foundation, which
the builders rejected, the Jewish builders rejected, has become
the head of the corner. They stumble over him. Fourthly,
fourthly, God's eye. In all of these things, God's
eye. Look at chapter 5 and verse 5. You know when these new more
reasonable governors wanted to know what it was that they were
about, look at verse 5 of Ezra chapter 5. But the eye of their
God was upon the elders of the Jews that they could not cause
them to cease till the matter came to Darius. And then they
returned answer by letter concerning the matter. God's eye was upon
them. This is a lesson for us. God's
eye is upon us. Zechariah prophesied in chapter
3 and verse 9 and chapter 4 and verse 10. This is what Zechariah
says, For behold, the stone that I have laid before Joshua, upon
one stone shall be seven eyes. Behold, I will engrave the graving
thereof, saith the Lord of hosts. That engraving was the names
of his people who he saved. And I will remove the iniquity
of that land in one day. That was the day that Christ
died on the cross of Calvary. And those seven, he says in chapter
4 verse 10, those seven, they are the eyes of the Lord, which
run to and fro through the whole earth. Is that comforting to
you, to know that the eye of their God was upon them, the
eye of our God is upon us? How do you view our situation
as a church in the 21st century? Is it all out of control? Is
it rapidly spiraling down to a complete lost cause? Do we
need to make alliances with those that seem like good evangelical
people to withstand opposition? No. God's Word teaches us to
rest in His sovereignty. He sees all. He ordains all. Nothing surprises Him because
He ordains it. Does that comfort you? This is
the realm in which we as believers live. He ordains all things for
his people's eternal good. That's why that verse, Romans
8, 28. All things work together for good to those that love God,
who are called according to his purpose. That's the key to that
verse. If he's purposed it, he will accomplish it. Nothing slips
past his sight. Seven eyes. Why seven? Perfect. The number of perfection. Perfect
vision. Nothing gets by him. He sees
it all. We read in Psalm 33, verse 18,
Behold, the eye of the Lord is upon them that fear him, upon
them that hope in his mercy. Do you hope in his mercy? Do
you fear God in a godly, childlike way? The eye of the Lord is upon
you. Peter says this, 1st Peter 3
verse 12, for the eyes of the Lord are over the righteous.
Who are the righteous? Those he makes righteous. The
eyes of the Lord are upon them. You might have seen some of those
programs about the police helicopter, the eye in the sky at night.
And you know, sometimes they're looking for criminals who've
run away trying to escape arrest. Other times they're looking for
people who are in danger. having got lost and down on the
ground there's the search party in pitch blackness trying to
look for them with nothing more than a little torch. How do they
see where they are? And the helicopter with its infrared
camera is the eye in the sky and you hear the commentary where
they're telling The rescue party on the ground, you need to go
forward ten paces, then turn to your left and go so many paces
and you will find the injured person lying in that bush over
there, eye in the sky. It's a very, very trivial illustration,
but that's the idea. God watches over everything that
we, his people, do. The eye of our God is upon his
people, is upon them that fear him. For our good, however things
might seem at the time, and fifthly, and I'll say this in one sentence
so you don't think you're going to be here another five minutes,
his purpose was fulfilled. God's purpose was fulfilled,
we read that temple was finished. He did finish it. They did re-establish
gospel worship there in Jerusalem. He prospered them. They finished
the work. His eye was upon them, guiding
them all the way. Temple worship was re-established.
So it shall be with the gospel of God's grace. Does that give
you hope? It certainly gives me hope. Amen.