The second book of Chronicles,
which we read last week, appears to end very much in tragedy. Solomon had built the temple
that David had longed to build for his lord. It had been great,
wondrous, a sight, a wonder in all the world round about. And Solomon's riches and power
and wisdom as a king were a wonder to all the world. The Queen of Sheba came to visit
him. The worship went on in the temple. The priesthood honored God as
instructed. But the years and the times went
by. And Solomon died and other kings
followed. Some good, others wicked. And
in the end, Jerusalem and Israel and all the people departed from
their God. They apostatised. They had strange
marriages. They worshipped the gods of the
idolatrous nations round about. They turned from God's ways.
And God judged them. Their enemies came in, the Chaldeans. and slew them. Jerusalem was razed to the ground,
the house of God was burnt down, the walls of Jerusalem were destroyed. And the nation of Israel, that
once great nation, was taken into captivity in Babylon. Everything had been brought to
nothing. because of their rebellion and
their sin. Oh what a note to end on. What a state to have come to.
What a shame that God's people should be captive and that the
witness of God and the house of God, the worship of God should
be left in such a state. These things shouldn't be. and
yet they were slaves in Babylon yet the book doesn't quite end
there and the wonderful hope of 2nd Chronicles and the book
which follows Ezra is that God prophesied by Jeremiah that his
people would not remain in captivity and that Jerusalem and that place
of worship in its midst the temple would not remain in such a ruinous
state. But God would return and bless
his people and they would be brought to worship their God.
And at the very end of 2nd Chronicles we read a proclamation by Cyrus
the king of Persia regarding the return to Jerusalem. the
restoration of the temple. And almost exactly word to word
these last two verses in 2nd Chronicles form the opening of
chapter 1 of Ezra. chapter 1 of Ezra opened such
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 his kingdom and put it also in writing saying
thus saith Cyrus king of Persia The Lord God of heaven have given
me all the kingdoms of the earth and he have charged me to build
him a house at Jerusalem which is in Judah. Who is there among
you of 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 of Israel. He is the God which is in Jerusalem. Who is there among you of 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 of Israel. So this book of Ezra begins. The same words, the same call. That same hope with which 2 Chronicles
closes is repeated here in Ezra as the
call and the hope meets its fulfillment. As Jeremiah's prophecy and Cyrus's
proclamation begins to take place. Cyrus calls out to this world,
who is there among you of all his people? Who is there? Who is there among you of all
his people? Well do you hear the call? Is
this to you? Because we're very much in the
same state in which this people in captivity were way back then. We're like that people of old.
We like Israel of old have sinned against our God. and our fathers
have sinned against our God. We've rebelled and they've rebelled
and we've taken his worship and his ways and his gospel lightly and it's been trodden down in
the street and mixed and altered and twisted
and despised so that when you go to this place of worship or
that place of worship what you hear there's no resemblance to
that faith which was once delivered unto the saints and the consequence
of this rebellion of us and of our fathers and of their fathers
is that we're in captivity and we live as it were in a Babylon. We live in a Britain and an America
and a world today which is so wanton in its rebellion against
God and his ways. So materialistic, so secular,
so despising of Christianity and of Christ and of God. The
media, the governments, the man on the street says in his heart
there is no God and lives and acts like there is no God and
builds his empires and builds his kingdoms and lives his life
and sets his ambitions as if there is no God and plays at
his science and teaches his young and rules his kingdoms as if
there is no God. the righteous in the land, God's
people captive in Babylon groan because of that testimony of
old which has been thrown in the gutter and they groan because
the temple of old lies in ruins. And God's people read of the
preachers of old and the days when God blessed Britain and
America and other nations when there were those preachers who
were faithful to his testimony and to his gospel. And when hundreds
gathered to hear them and we think where is that today? We're in captivity. Where is
the temple of old? Where are the worshippers who
gathered in former days? In those days when the gospel
was faithfully preached up and down this land, well where are
they? Today we're just ones and twos,
a few here and a few there, silenced and scattered. Where is the gospel? Where is the gospel in the professing
churches in those places which take Christ's name and say they
have the gospel and yet they don't? You go and you hear, you
go and you hear and there's no gospel. You may hear the name of Jesus
here and there but he's swamped by the works
and the will and the ways of man. And he's swamped by the
entertainment and the tunes and the dance and the drama that
these modern day magicians have brought into these places in
order to woo the youth of our day to leave the nightclub and
to come to their disco on a Sunday morning. There's plenty of noise
and plenty of claims but there's no gospel. We've been robbed
of it. And the righteous know it. And
the righteous who dwell in this Babylon, surrounded by worship,
but not of the one true and living God, turn and face another way. and they sit down by the rivers
of Babylon and they cry for the former day and they cry for the
way the testimony has been destroyed and they long to see the gospel
preached. They long to see Jeremiah's prophecy
fulfilled in our day as it was in the first year of the King
Osiris. Do you long for it? Do you feel like you're in Babylon
in captivity? Do you wonder where the children
of God are gathered? Those who have a love for the
gospel as you know it. Those who know the Christ that
you know. Sometimes you meet people that
say they're Christians and they speak of their Lord and they're
like they're talking about a completely different person. the Jesus they
speak of bears no resemblance to the Lord that you know because he isn't the same Jesus
and he isn't the same Lord and there are many who go around
and about and say lo Jesus lo Christ and he's not Christ and
he's not the Lord Jesus and this is not the gospel but there was a prophecy that
the Lord spake by Jeremiah in days of old. And this was the
prophecy we see fulfilled in Ezra. In Jeremiah 33 and verse
10 we read, Thus saith the Lord, Again there shall be heard in
this place which ye say shall be desolate without man and without
beast, even in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem
that are desolate without man and without inhabitant and without
beast, there shall be heard the voice of joy. and the voice of
gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride, the
voice of them that shall say, Praise the Lord of hosts, for
the Lord is good, for his mercy endureth forever, and of them
that shall bring the sacrifice of praise into the house of the
Lord, for I will cause to return the captivity of the land as
at the first, saith the Lord. Thus saith the Lord of hosts,
again in this place which is desolate, without man and without
beast, and in all the cities thereof, shall be an habitation
of shepherds, causing their flocks to lie down. in the cities of
the mountains, in the cities of the vale, and in the cities
of the south, and in the land of Benjamin, and in the places
about Jerusalem, and in the cities of Judah shall the flocks pass
again under the hands of him that telleth them, saith the
Lord. Behold, the day is come, saith the Lord, that I will perform
that good thing which I have promised under the house of Israel
and the house of Judah. What a promise, what a prophecy,
what a hope and what joy when that heathen king Cyrus of Persia
announced that the word of the Lord spoken by the mouth of Jeremiah
should be accomplished because the Lord stirred up Cyrus' spirit
and he made a proclamation throughout all the kingdom and cried out,
Who is there among you of all his people? His God be with him. Let him go up to Jerusalem which
is in Judah and build the house of the Lord God of Israel which
is in Jerusalem. Let it be so. What brought this
to pass? Did the sinful Israelites taken
into captivity finally come to their senses? Did they change
their mind? Did they come to the right decision?
Did they in their strength escape their captors and flee Babylon
and head back and build the city that they would build? No. It didn't come from man. It didn't come from their strength
and it didn't come from their will. It happened because God
decreed, I will bless my people again, even though they rebelled,
even though I have judged them, even though I have chastised
them in this way. Nevertheless, despite their rebellion,
despite their wickedness, I am going to build Jerusalem again. and I will build my temple again
and I will be worshipped and my people will be gathered, the
sheep will be gathered, my flock will be gathered and I will be
glorified in their midst. I will do this. So he took a
heathen king, a gentile king, not a Jew and he caused his word
and his gospel to be declared throughout all the world. and
for his people to be gathered and his worship to be restored. You see it's about the gospel. What builds the house of God? What gathers the flock of God? What brings about his worship
but the gospel? The gospel. The reason we have captivity
in our day, the reason the churches are as they are, the reason the
children of God suffer and are scattered is because of the lack
of the faithful preaching of the gospel. But likewise, what
builds God's church, what gathers God's saints, what grants them
hope, what fulfills his promise by Jeremiah, is the preaching
of his gospel. And just as 2 Chronicles ended
with hope and Ezra ends with hope, that hope remains today
and to the end. God is building his church by
his gospel. Christ is building his church
and the gates of hell, the gates of Hades did not, will not, cannot,
never will prevail against it. The temple will be built. Whatever Babylon, and the might
of man, and the might of the kings, and the might of the power,
and the might of the media, and the might of all men might do
to prevent it, they cannot prevent God's building His church through
Christ by His gospel. Where the gospel is, there is
Christ in His temple. There the temple of God is built. There the house of the Lord is
built. There the walls are restored. There the people are gathered.
There the sheep feed in green pastures. Where the gospel is
silenced or corrupted, perverted, twisted, altered. There the temple
lies in ruins. There the walls are brought down.
There the people of God are scattered. There the testimony ceases to
be. It's about the gospel. The gospel. Cyrus read out his proclamation
throughout all the kingdom. Or as the margin in the AV says, He caused a voice to pass through
all his kingdom. Who is there among you of all
his people? A voice, as it were, passed throughout
all the kingdom. The sound of the gospel's call
was raised up in the four corners of the earth. Where are my people,
God says. Come and gather, come and worship,
come and feed. Come without money. Come buy
and eat and drink. Come and see that I am God. You
are my people. A voice was made to pass. throughout
the kingdom and the Lord moved in his people's hearts he moved
in the hearts of his people and there were those in captivity
in Babylon who heard the cry of God through Cyrus and went
and returned to Jerusalem and went to build again we read
the accounts in the first few chapters of those tribes those
people who went And they sound like a large number when they
are listed but in reality they were very few. Few compared to
what Israel once were. Few. But that few would go. and they would build the walls
again and they would build the temple again and they would see
God glorified in its midst because they loved God and they loved
his ways and they loved his testimonies and they loved his gospel and
they loved his grace and they loved his salvation for they
knew that salvation and they knew that the Lord he is God
And they knew that the gods of the Babylon's and the Chaldeans
and all around them were false idols, dumb idols which brought
nothing but death. But they knew that life and salvation
was in their God, the one true and living God. So they returned. They returned. and in type and
figure of the gospel they would speak, they would speak of Christ,
of grace, of salvation, of justification by faith, of the election of
God. They wouldn't shut up, they wouldn't
be quiet, but their hearts were raised up in joy and they would
shout out to Jerusalem we go! The Lord, He is our God. Salvation is of the Lord. They went. Is that the cry that God has
put in your heart? Despite all the opposition, despite
the Babylon that you see all around you, will you go? Will you shout? Will you cry
or will you remain silent? Has God put the gospel and the
love of the gospel and of Christ in your heart? Or does the fear
of man keep you silent? It's a great snare, the fear
of man. It's the greatest snare for the
believer. The greatest snare. And one of
the greatest lessons that we must be taught time and time
again is cease ye from man whose breath is in his nostrils. Cease
ye. Don't follow man. Don't be persuaded
by man and don't fear man. Man is always wrong unless God
teaches him right. And though the opponents of God
and his people be many and mighty, they can do nothing to harm the
child of God in reality. They can tarnish our bodies,
they can burn us, they can slay us, they can put us in jail.
They can cause us to suffer physically and emotionally. But that life
that God puts in our hearts by his grace through his gospel
cannot be taken away. If we're in Christ's hands, Christ
says of his sheep, they shall never perish. None shall pluck
them out of my hand, though they try. And try they will. But you won't be plucked out
of Christ's hands. So go. Go with the gospel. Back to Jerusalem. Go. These went, but oh the opposition
they faced. We'll read something of this
in the later chapters. The opposition. It wasn't easy. But their God
sent them and their God was with them and their building wasn't
by their strength. It wasn't they who decided to
go, God sent them. God brought this to pass and
God used them to do what he would do. So he sent them back to Jerusalem
and he sent them to build the walls, he sent them to build
the foundations of the temple and he brought it to pass. He
gave them the strength, he gave them the tools, he gave them
the gold and the silver. he brought it to pass and in
chapter 3 we read of that wonderful time when the foundations of
the temple were laid and the joy that the people had when
they saw this come about chapter 3 verse 11 they sang together by
course in praising and giving thanks unto the lord because
he is good for his mercy enduring 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 But
many of the priests and Levites and chief of the fathers who
were ancient men that had seen the first house, when the foundation
of this house was laid before their eyes, wept with a loud
voice. And many shouted aloud for joy,
so that the 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. Oh if you've known the gospel
and if you've seen its power in a former day, if you've seen
how God used that gospel of grace in our land in former days when
he took mighty preachers, when he took Gadsby, when he took
Huntington and saved hundreds and thousands by their preaching,
if you read those wondrous sermons by such men and see the effect
they had and that the transformation in their heroes and you look
back and know something of the of the temple of God as it were
in a former day then when you see the same gospel when you
hear the same gospel being preached today in the midst of a people,
a multitude, who hate it, and a multitude of religious people
who preach another gospel, when you hear that gospel of sovereign
grace preached, it will cause your heart to shout for joy. Because you almost got to a point
of thinking, will it ever be heard? Are there any who want
to hear that or have they all gone astray? I seem to be the
only one who longs to hear those truths. Everyone else tells me
to go this way. Everyone else tells me I should
believe this and that. But I read the scriptures and
I hear this preaching and I know it's true. And I know that Huntington
stood for the truth and I know that these things that these
men stood for were true. What a glorious sight that was,
what a glory to be in the midst of that people gathered under
such preaching. And you see the ones and the
twos who seem to love it today and the multitude who hate it
and you wonder whether the people will ever be gathered. And yet
when you see it happen, and you hear the sound of that gospel,
what a shout for joy there is in the heart. What a shout. But that gospel never went away. And the testimony of God through
his people throughout time has never gone away. However apostate
this religious world and generation may appear, however much may
lay under rubble, God has not removed the sound of his gospel
from our land. and from our world. He has had
his witnesses throughout the generations and he will build
here and he will build there and he will cause this one to
move and that one to move and he will cause that one to build
and that one to build and he will build his temple. He will
gather his people together in Christ by his gospel. And when he does, he starts with
a foundation. They rejoiced when the foundations
were laid. What a shout of joy! Well there
was nothing much to see, there was just foundations, there were
no walls yet, there was no altar yet, there was no gold adorned
in it, there were just foundations in the rock. Yet they knew how
important those foundations were. Tremendous! And when God builds
his church by his gospel, he begins with the right foundations. and that's what's wrong with
so much that's built up under the name of Christ in our day
it's not built on the right foundations and however good it may look
for a while and people say oh we've done this program and that
program and we've got unbelievers coming in and professions made
and they say we've had 10 baptized and you go back five years later
and say where is John who was baptized and where is Jill oh
they've gone now but then we've got this half a new program we're
doing now and this will be great it doesn't last because it's
building on sand and even if it lasts 50 years it won't last
the fires of god's wrath in judgment to come as you pass from this
world to the next You need the right foundations and the right
gospel upon it. Those foundations are the apostolic
foundations, the foundation of Christ and his apostles. The
doctrine, the doctrine of Christ, his gospel, the truth as it is
in Christ. That there is one God in three
persons, Father, Son and Holy Ghost, each divine, each equal,
each eternal. that that God covenanted to save
a people before the foundations of this earth that the father
said to his son these are those for whom you will die that that
God by his speech through his son created this world in six
days and that on the seventh day he rested that the man and
the woman that he made upon this earth turned against him in rebellion
as they were led astray by the deceptions of the evil one. and
that they fell into sin and by sin death entered and sin and
death passed upon all men by natural generation right up to
you and me today and that because of what they did we are sinners
guilty before a holy god utterly corrupt totally corrupt without
one inclination or desire to do good there is none good no
not one There are none righteous, there are none that seek after
me is Paul's plain testimony in Romans as God taught him to
say. As recorded in the Psalms. And
yet despite that being the state of all men from Adam to this
day, you and me included, though we are guilty sinners, God covenanted
with Christ to send Christ into this world as a substitute. As one who would die in the place
of those guilty sinners, of those names that the Father gave to
him. One who would save a people.
and elect people, a chosen people. His people Israel, Christ came
for them. He came to take the judgment
and the wrath of God against that people that was due to them. And at the cross, Christ having
come, having been made man, holy God and holy man, yet without
sin, went to the cross and was nailed to the cross. and took
upon him the sins of all his elect people and was made sin
in their place that they should be made the righteousness of
God in him. And he died, he really died for
their sins and he really suffered for their sins. And at the end
of three hours of suffering he cried out, it is finished. And
all the sin was taken away and in him All that people were made
to be righteous. And in him they died and in him
they all rose again on the third day because he had the power
to lay down his life and the power to take it again. He rose
again victorious with that people. He ascended on high. He sat down
and he sent his spirit forth to preach the gospel and the
news of what he did. and that gospel and Christ who
preaches it and those truths which are declared throughout
all the scriptures form the doctrine which is the foundation upon
which Christ's church, his temple is built. Nothing else will support
such a build in all else's sand. You alter and chip away at any
part of that and you've got sand. Deny the divinity of Christ. Deny the manhood of Christ. Deny
the eternal sonship of Christ. Deny the total depravity and
fall of man. Deny the effectual salvation
of Christ, the particular redemption. Deny the election of God. Deny
that we have no ability by our free will to choose to follow
God because there is none righteous. and none that seek after me deny
that and you deny God's truth you make God to be a liar and
you build on sand but we don't build on sand we build on the
truth and God has declared the truth that there is none like him that
man is sinful through and through And that salvation, if there's
ever to be salvation, will come because God says, I will save. Thou art mine. You have not chosen
me, but I have chosen you. Who is there among you? Who is there among you? of all his people. So they went and they built and
the foundations were laid. But there were those who hated
the building. There were many who despised
what these upstarts were doing. They knew persecution and opposition
The people came alongside and said, you can't do that, what
are you doing? We read in chapter four of Ezra,
the adversaries that these people faced, who came alongside them
and questioned them and questioned their authority. We meet the same today. If you
preach the gospel, if you believe the gospel, you'll find, first
of all, that you're unwelcome in most of the churches. you
stand for the truth you just talk about it friendly to other
believers who supposedly want to fellowship and talk of the
things of God and you just say well the scriptures say this
and the scriptures say that and they say whoa you need to be
careful about saying that sort of thing or I'm not sure it means
that and I'm not sure we should go that far with it and you find
that those that you thought you would be one with despise you
and cast you out. And you thought you were in a
place where the gospel should be sounded and where the people
should be gathered. And you find you're the only
one that loves the gospel as you know it. So you find yourself
out. Not everywhere but most places.
Many places. The gospel isn't welcome and
God's people aren't welcome. They find opposition. But the
opposition begins in a subtle way. Because it begins with these
people saying, well, come along to our place. We love Christ
and his gospel. Come along. Come and worship
with us. Come and build with us. We'll
build with you. We love God. We want Jesus' name
to be known. Come and build with us. But the
child of God soon discovers that he can't build with them. that
to build with them is to compromise, to mix and to weaken the message
which he has. You cannot mix the Gospel. You cannot. And when you refuse
to mix it, when you refuse to go along with their ways and
their altering, with their translations of the Bible which chip away
at the truth, and with their introduction of their modern
hymns and choruses, and with their alteration, of the message
of the gospel with their concealing those bits of it they find offensive. Oh well it's not so much that
we don't agree with election but we just don't think we should
preach it. When you say well how can you
not preach the gospel? You find they oppose you and
you find that you simply can't work together to build in that
way. you find you're cast out and when that happens the opposition
gets much stronger you're accepted to a degree working
with the others if you keep quiet but when you start speaking of
grace, of sovereign grace how the face changes, how the looks
turn from fake smiles of love feigned to utter hatred. How you see the dragon's glare
in the midst of those that profess Jesus' name. Those that say they
build, when in reality they destroy. Then the opposition increases.
Then it is claimed that we are rebellious and we cause trouble
to others. We do with our gospel and our
sovereign grace. chapter 4 verse 1. Now when the
adversaries of Judah and Benjamin heard that the children of the
captivity built the temple unto the Lord God of Israel then they
came to Zerubbabel unto the chief of the fathers and said unto
them let us build with you for we seek your God as ye do and
we do sacrifice unto him since the days of Esarhaddon king of
Asher which brought us up hither. But Zerubbabel and Joshua, and
the rest of the chief of the fathers of Israel said unto them,
you have nothing to do with us to build a house unto our God.
But we ourselves together will build unto the Lord God of Israel,
as King Cyrus the king of Persia have commanded us. And then the
people of the land weakened the hands of the people of Judah
and troubled them in building. Like our nation today, Christians
are no longer tolerated either in the land in a secular sense
or indeed in those churches which have stolen Christ's name. The opposition, the persecution's
inevitable. Matthew 5 makes this plain. Christ
makes it plain to his followers, if you follow me you will suffer
persecution. Blessed are they which are persecuted
for righteousness sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed
are ye when men shall revile you and persecute you and shall
say all manner of evil against you falsely for my sake. rejoice
and be exceeding glad for great is your reward in heaven for
so persecuted they the prophets which were before you it will
come and if it doesn't come it's because you're quiet and it's
because you are careful and cautious and pragmatic about which bits
of the gospel you will declare and which bits you will leave
for another day. You preach Christ as he's revealed
in the scripture and you will see persecution. People say we
don't have persecution in this land, we do. We're not yet put
in jail. We're not yet put to death. We
were 500 years ago. Today we're not. But there's
plenty of persecution around. Plenty of casting out from the
churches. Plenty of casting out in the world. Plenty of opposition
in the workplace. Plenty of pressure to prevent
Christians from conducting certain work. If you want to work in
the adoption of children, work with
fostering children, work in offering marriage services. Whatever it
be you'll find it harder and harder. This is a world that
hates Christ and his people. And if you want to declare the
gospel you'll find many a door shut to you. We won't get this
opposition if we're not building. If we sit quiet, if our gospel
is hid, the world will leave us in peace. But if we speak
up and declare Christ, then everyone rages, the religious most especially. Indeed the fierceness of their
opposition and rage is almost illogical and irrational when
you see it. They'll still home in on anything. They'll use anything as a reason
why you can't do it. But opposed they will. You can
say what you like as long as you don't preach the gospel.
But preach that and every argument comes up against it. In chapter
5 and verse 9 of Ezra the opposition increased such that this people
came along and questioned the authority of those who built. Who commanded you to build this
house and to make up these walls? Who commanded you? Who were you? Who were you to be building this? do you think you are? You come
down here from Babylon, you come along here you ones and twos
and you just start building, who do you think you are? Who do you think you are to preach
the gospel and to hold your meetings and act like there's no gospel
church in town? What do you think we are? We're
the churches, we've the gospel, we've the theological colleges. Who are you to speak? Which college
did you go to? Who sent you into the ministry?
Who taught you? Why should we listen to you?
We have a Levite for our priest. Our pastor was trained here,
there and everywhere. There's nothing he doesn't know.
Are you sure you're right? Who commanded you to build this
house and to make up these walls? How few and weak the builders
must have felt. The building was put to an end.
They questioned the authority. That went back to the king. Everything
was brought to a stop. But then, Haggai, Zechariah, Zerubbabel,
Joshua. Carried on building. Whatever
they may say, the gospel won't be silenced. Whatever they may
say, we cannot but build. We cannot but preach Christ. We can't be quiet. The apostles
in the New Testament faced the same thing. They were brought
up before the magistrates. They caused a riot in the towns.
And the magistrates said, look, we don't want to put you in prison. We don't want to kill you. Just
be quiet. You can go in peace. Just don't
speak of Christ. So they went out and they preached
Christ. they could do no else because
they knew that everything else was death but their life and
their salvation was in Christ and whatever men may say against
it and against him and against them they can't but preach him however few and however weak
they may be, and however few and however weak we may be. If
we're Christ, we can't keep quiet. We may be ones and twos, scattered
nothings. How can we stand against such
opposition that there is against us? We can't. But here's their
answer and our answer. We are the servants of the God
of heaven and earth, and we build the house that was built these
many years ago, which a great king of Israel built and set
up. He's the king we follow. That great king of whom they
spake, David, and through him Solomon, who built that house,
was a figure of Christ. and we who know Christ and love
Christ and have been saved by his gospel are his servants and
our building of the house is not in our strength but in his
we can do nothing but we have a great king who sent us and
who leads us and who preaches his gospel and he will bless
his gospel we come in the name of a great king We are but the
tools that He takes up in His hands to build. And we don't
need to be strong because He is the strength. We're but tools
in His hands. He sent us, He declares His gospel
by us. It's His gospel which is the
power, not us. And it's His gospel which when
preached can push down all opposition and every enemy. Our hope is
in Christ and his gospel alone and when that gospel's preached,
kings bow down before it. Empires fall over. Hard hearts
are melted. He can turn back the greatest
of opponents. He builds his church and the
gates of hell cannot prevail against it. When that gospel
is preached, what can stand in its way? Nothing. Can man stand against it? Can
sin stand against it? Can your hard heart stand against
it? Can all the might of all the
world's religions stand against it? No! all will try and all
will rage against it and all will speak lies of it all will
slander it and those who preach it and those who follow it all
will speak evil of us but none can stop the power of God in
the gospel from achieving its end they tried, they tried here
when the temple was rebuilt and they tried to silence the gospel
when they as a mob cried out crucify him crucify him of our
Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. The enemy of God, Satan, and
those who hate God as he moved them to hate him all cried out
with one voice away with this man crucify him we will not have
him to reign over us and they tried to bring about the end
of the gospel and silence the son of God forevermore but their
aim to bring about evil brought about the greatest good that
was ever done. All their efforts to silence
Christ simply brought about the salvation of his people forevermore. The Gospel was wrought, completed,
finished when Christ was crucified upon the cross. When He died,
His people were brought to life. God justified sinners through
the death of His Son in their place. And though Satan thought
he had the glory, he had the victory, he'd taken the Son of
God, he'd brought the law to bear down upon him, he accused
him, he accused our people in him. Though he thought he had
the victory, he took the knife and plunged it in himself instead,
the fool. When Christ died, Satan was defeated. When Christ died, the sin of
all His people was taken away, never to be seen again. When
Christ died, His blood which was shed washed them and made
them spotless and pure and perfect in Him. When Christ died, they
were made the righteousness of God in Him. When He died, they
were brought to life. when he died his faith in dying
looked up to his father and he looked up and said all those
all those names you've given me written upon my heart all
those for whom I die my father bring them with me through death
take away their sin make them to be the righteousness of God
in me make them to live and he shut his eyes and gave up the
ghost believing it would come about and on the third day he
opened those eyes again and rose in almighty power and his faith
was answered and that people came in with him into a glorious
salvation into a temple which was built by him at the cross
which we see visibly here and there throughout time to the
last day when the sound of the gospel and the message of what
he's done is made known and that people are gathered in but when
he rose with them they rose up in that temple and went to be
with him forevermore and that's where we're heading if we're
his. Are you his? Have you faith? Have you looked
upon the Son? He had faith and He lived by
faith for the just shall live by faith and if we're to live
we need that same faith to look upon Him and to see Him crucified
in our state. Have you that faith? Did He die
for you? Are you one in His temple? who's been made to know and to
believe the gospel. Are you? Who is there among you
of all his people? Who is there among you of all
his people? His 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,
let him go up, go up, go up by faith, see the Son of God crucified
in Jerusalem, be gathered with the saints where the gospel is
known, and fear not the cries of men, for where God and his
gospel are, there is life forevermore. Amen.