I want you to turn back in your
Bibles to Ezra chapter 7. Ezra chapter 7. If you don't have a Bible, you
can use your pastor's commentary. The outline is in the pastor's
commentary. Ezra chapter 7 is where we are.
I want to lay a foundation for
the next couple of messages out of this wonderful and unique
book that's given to us And don't forget one thing that you heard
our elder exhort you to do and to think. Don't forget one thing you heard
our elder exhort you to do and to think. We are in the seventh chapter
of the book of Ezra. Now, Ezra is a marvelous book and there's
a message in the book of Ezra with several messages underlying
the book of Ezra. But in order to benefit from
Ezra, you really have to grasp the message that is at the heart
of the book of Ezra and Nehemiah and Esther. God is doing something
and God has been doing something. And the book of Ezra becomes
part of this thing that God is doing. Have you ever asked yourself
the question, what is God doing? Have you ever asked yourself
the question, do I know what God is doing when God is doing
it? I'm just asking the question.
I'm not, I'm not demanding that you answer it, but I am asking
the question, are you sensitive enough to the Lord's movements
and actions and purposes in your life and in this world to be
able to sense what the Lord is doing. Over all of the years
you've been living and ostensibly have been serving the Lord, if
you are a Christian, if you are really truly born again, and
therefore in contact with the true and the living God by faith,
have you really asked the question, do I know what God is doing?
Am I aware of what God is up to? Am I clear on my place in
this scheme of God's redemption? Or am I kind of just in a fog
with regards to everything that's going on? That's a very germane
question. That's a very relevant question.
And that really is sort of a foundational prodding that I want to bring
to your mind and mine as we look at the book of Ezra. I don't
think you can benefit from Ezra unless you understand that there
are some things that have been going on for a long time and
that God has purposed and God has decreed and God is doing
some things with everyone. In spite of them knowing it,
God is doing some things, but out of everyone in the world,
God's people ought to know what God is up to. The Lord does nothing
but that he reveals it to his servants, the prophets first.
The Lord has privileged his people to be in on what God is up to. You and I should be able to say,
this is what the Lord is doing. And the book of Ezra actually
brings us into that concept. Now, Ezra, as you had a little
hint from our elder, is a priest. Ezra is an individual whom God
has raised up. And Ezra, as we shall see over
the next couple, two or three messages, I'm not sure how many
more there will be, Ezra serves as a great, a great, great type
and foreshadow of Jesus Christ for his people. Ezra serves as
a great, great type of the mediator of his people. And Ezra comes
on this scene the way Jesus Christ ultimately came on the scene.
We're in the seventh chapter of Ezra. We're not in the first
chapter. We're not in the third chapter.
We are in the seventh chapter of Ezra. Ezra's been talking
to us for six chapters. And now we finally get to meet
the man. That's exactly how it was with
God Almighty and the person of Christ. For Christ spoke to us
through his word for several centuries before he actually
showed up. For thousands and thousands of
years, we heard the Lord is coming. And we read from Genesis 1, 1
all the way through Malachi chapter 4 about the coming of Christ. And if you've been privileged
to hear the gospel, you would have been able to see little
inklings of his coming. You know, those pictures that
the children have with this sort of collage of images and the
children are challenged to find the little bird and the little
cat and the little dog in this collage of images. And then there's
often in this collage of images, one grand central image. Well,
that's how the word of God is. And this is what the Word of
God is with regards to Christ, our Savior. Lo, I come in the
volume of the book. It's written about me. But God
has to grant you the ability to see Jesus in Genesis 1-1.
in Genesis 1, 2, in Genesis 3, 6, and 7, in Genesis 5, 9, in
Genesis 17, in Genesis 40, in Genesis 50, Exodus, Leviticus,
Numbers, Deuteronomy, as the kids know how to say it in their
songs. God has to grant you to see Jesus coming in the volume
of the book. But he finally showed up one
day, didn't he? The Bible tells us in the gospel
of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, and John, John the Baptist pointed
to him and said, Behold, the Lamb of God. He showed up. But
it was after thousands of years of the people of God being promised
that the Messiah would come. And so it is with our friend
Ezra. Ezra just now shows up on the scene. But some things
have been going on that are worthy of our recollection in order
to benefit from the introduction of the We'll call him the star
of the show. This book really is not about
Ezra, but the greater Ezra, Jesus Christ. Ezra's name in the Hebrew
means God is our help. And what's been going on, Saints,
is this. God in his mercy has been calling his people back
to himself. God in His mercy has been calling
Israel out of Babylon back to Jerusalem. That's what's going
on. In fact, you can go with me now in your outline because
it opens up this way. Point number one in your outline,
after these things, do you see that? In fact, that's the first
verse of Ezra chapter 7. Ezra opens up in chapter 7 saying
now, after these things. After what things? He's referring
to the magnificence of God Almighty in his providential call and
purpose to bring Israel back home. He's referring to God in
his purpose of sustaining his witness in the world. You see, God has always had a
witness in the world. God's always had a people for
his own praise and glory. God's always had a church. God's
always had a temple as it were. God's always had a message for
the world. And God sustains his message. And what God is doing
at this time is restoring his witness to the world. That's
where we are right now. And I thought about that as I
was meditating on God's faithfulness to himself. Do you know the Bible
says that God is faithful to himself? When the Bible says
that if you deny him, God cannot deny himself. God must be faithful
to himself. If you don't praise him, the
stones will praise him. God's going to get somebody to
give him praise, to worship him, to exalt him, to glorify him. God's gonna sustain that witness
in the world and that's what God is doing right now So right
now the context is wonderful because really it's a context
of God's mercy Did God actually have to bring those knucklehead
rebellious people who lived and loved being in Babylon back to
Palestine? Did he have to do that? No, he
did it because it was just it was a part of his own purpose
and grace Israel is making their way back home. And not only are
they making their way back home because God called them out of
Babylon but they're making their way back home in a kind of pomp
and glory that's absolutely phenomenal. We learned, didn't we, that God
moved the heart of this pagan Persian king to send a decree
into all the world. that God's elect must go back
to Jerusalem and establish God's throne and God's church and God's
temple and God's glory. And you heard our elder reading
it. This is fabulous. God so moved the heart of that
pagan king that not only did they go back in a sense of security
with the authority of the king, the king had it written down.
He had it written down and it reminds me of what the scripture
says in the Psalms forever Oh Lord thy word is settled in heaven
See and so even though the people of God had to struggle with adversaries.
We talked about that, right? They had to struggle with adversaries
because now they're separated now. They are prominent now They
are out in the open Yet they had authority for what they were
doing and that Authority that they had for what they were doing
was the King's Word for the people of God. This is our authority
This is our authority. We have no grounds upon which
we can argue or stand for what God has called us to do, but
the Word of God. And this is the grounds upon
which even right now we are dealing with Ezra. It's remarkable, the
king has told all of his counselors, he has told the whole nation,
he has told the whole world, God has commanded me to rebuild
his temple and to send his people back home. That's the context.
I want, as we move on into the next point, for you to think
about that for a moment. What a wonderful providential
care it is for the people of God to live in a land where the
pagan secular rulers are under compulsion by the Spirit of God
to let God's people do what God has called them to do. What a marvelous privilege it
is when the people of God who live in a world that by nature
is hostile to God are under such providential blessings. that
the president and the house, the Senate, the Congress, all
of them left and right. Everybody is under compulsion
by the spirit of God to leave the church of God alone. Let
the church do what the church must do because we believe that
the true and the living God abides in the church. Well, we don't
quite live in that day to day. And it's going to get worse from
here on out, I'm here to tell you. But while as yet our pagan
rulers have not succeeded in getting the vote they need to
overturn freedom of religion, you and I ought to be thankful
that the God of heaven has kept his hand on our secular pagan
rulers. The Bible tells us God turns
the hearts of the kings, whether so ever he wills, like the rivers
of water. Isn't that right? And the Bible
tells us when a man's ways please the Lord, he'll make even his
enemies to be what? At peace with him. Do you know
that in your own life? Do you know how God opens doors
and shuts doors and makes a way where there is no way? And when
God wants his gospel to get out, it's gonna get out. Isn't that
right? Paul said, the Word of God ain't bound. I might be bound,
but the Word of God is never bound. And so what we see wonderfully
and marvelously in this book of Ezra is the unfurrowing of
God's purpose. I want you to see that. The unfurrowing
of God's purpose. And yes, there is a parallelism
between Ezra's time, 500 years before Christ, and where you
and I are today. As we go through the book of
Ezra, we're gonna see this. There are parallels between his
time and ours. I'm not so sure again that I
can say that we have the same favor that Ezra does with the
king, but I'll tell you what, as long as we have the favor
of the true and the living God, we're fine. We're fine. We're absolutely fine. When Ezra
says after these things he's talking about God in his mercy
and in his purpose having done two things I want you to hear
this is irrelevant after what things after God in his mercy
Destroyed his own people Destroyed his own temple scattered his
people to the four winds and sent them into Babylonian captivity
and that what God did oh That's after these things. Now God destroyed
his own temple, his own people, and scattered them abroad for
two reasons. I want you to get this now. Why would God destroy
his own house? Why would God scatter his own
people? Because God cannot lie. He can't fail. He can't change.
It was part of God's covenant. God said, if you disobey me,
I'll destroy you. Isn't that what he said? If you
don't know, it's Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 28. Then it's
Jeremiah. Jeremiah said it. And then Daniel
confirmed it in Daniel 7 through 9. You guys remember that? 70
years they would be in captivity. Why did God destroy Israel? Because
God can't look upon sin. God must punish sin. Listen to
me. Why did God destroy his own people? Will you hear me? Because
God's holy. See, we don't know that God in
this generation today. My goodness, we don't know the
God that's holy today. Do you know anything about a
holy God that must act according to His nature? If you're born
of God, you ought to. God's so holy that He had to
kill His own darling son when He saw my sin on Christ. That's called holiness. And when
God destroyed the temple in 587 BC, you know what He had done?
He had foreshadowed The death of Christ on Calvary's tree as
my temple and yours if you believe the gospel John chapter 2 verse
19 destroyed this temple and I will raise it up after what?
After three days. So what we got going on in the
book of Ezra is a resurrection Are you hearing me? It's a resurrection
that's going on I don't know if you were in Sunday school
but if you were in Sunday school you would have heard our elder talking
about the relevance and the significance and the implications of the resurrection
and See, we talk about the resurrection, but I don't think y'all get it.
I don't think you understand that the resurrection is the
foundation and the hinge pin for everything that you and I
are concerned with concerning life and godliness. If Christ
had not risen from the dead, your faith is in vain, you're
still in your sins, and you're going to hell. Am I making some
sense? So the resurrection is the foundation
for everything. And what we got going on right
here What we got going on in the Book of Ezra, if you want
to kind of capture it in your mind, is a resurrection sort
of type, okay? A resurrection. Our nation needs
a resurrection. Our churches need a resurrection. Some of you need a resurrection
right now. Some of you need God to call
you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Some of you
need God to deliver you from captivity right now. I do too.
I need to experience the blowing of God's wind upon my soul to
liberate me from some of the traps of this world system. I
know you don't wanna see it, but it's true for you too. I
need to feel God in his powerful presence and influence and decree,
moving me further and further away from Babylon, closer to
Jerusalem. Isn't that true? That's what I need God to do.
And that's what God is doing for his people here. That's what
God is doing for his people here. He's moving them into his own
purposes. Ezra opens up with God calling
Israel calling them out in a regal, magnificent fashion. And as he
brings them back, as he brings them back, I don't know about
you, but that air felt good to me. Oh, my sister, huh? Okay. Suffer with your brethren,
suffer with your brethren. I felt like the Lord was casting
his favor on me right about then, because I'm getting hot right
about now. Ezra, the book of Ezra deals
with God's extreme purpose of making sure he establishes a
witness in this world. And he's doing it in two parts.
The first part was accomplished in chapters one through chapter
six. I want to remind you of what they are. And I want you
to be careful to note the application. Here's what God did in chapters
one through six. He brought the people back into
a physical land. That physical land was called
Palestine. There were about 50,000 who came back. Not everybody
came back 50,000. Now that 50,000 that came back
constitutes two groups of people. Will you hear me? Religious folks
and true believers. Now, which one are you? Let me
see if I can help you. The religious folk that came
back, they came back to Palestine, but they didn't come back to
Christ. They returned, but they didn't return to the Lord. We're
going to see that as we go through the text. Now, the elect among
them came back with a clear view of the purpose of God. They came
back realizing that God had called them to be a separate people,
to be a holy people, to be a called out people, to be a chosen people,
to be a peculiar people, called unto God, called to glorify him
in the message of the gospel represented in the temple word.
Are you hearing me? And therefore they were eagerly
involved in the task of three things, which we saw, I think
the last time I preached to you, God raised up a high priest,
didn't he? The first thing that God did was raise up a high priest.
We talked about this that last time. The idea that you and I
can stand in the presence of God without a mediator, without
a go-between, without a surety, and without a substitute means
two things. We got the wrong God, and we have a flawed view
of ourselves. Isn't that right? The Bible says
that there's no way for any man to get to the Father, but who?
Through the Son. What that means is you and I
need a mediator. You and I need a high priest.
You and I need somebody to stand between us and a holy God and
to make us acceptable with that God. That's what we need. Israel
understood that. And as a consequence, God raised
up Joshua the high priest, didn't he? Great type of the Lord Jesus
Christ. The high priest is a wonderful
concept. Don't ever forget it. You need a mediator. You need
someone to represent you. You need someone that has God's
ear and your best interest in view. You need someone who is
so capable and able to deal with all your issues that all you
have to do is stand there and keep your mouth shut. And that's
the Lord Jesus. That's the Lord Jesus. We have
an advocate with the Father. Jesus Christ, the righteous one.
Isn't that right? He's an advocate for us. He's
with the Father. And he's an advocate for us.
That's good when the judge has an advocate for you, the guilty
sinner. That means you're in good shape. And then we saw that
the high priest saw to it that the first thing that took place
in Israel, even before there was a temple, there was no temple,
there was nothing but dirt and ground. He established the altar. Remember that? Chapter three,
around verse three, Joshua the high priest established
the altar and they burnt sacrifices morning and evening, morning
and evening, because they feared the people that were around them.
Remember that? And we learned that it's absolutely
critical for your worship and mine to be acceptable with God,
that we must constantly remember that you and I are sinners and
only the blood of Christ establishes a ground of fellowship between
us and God. The sacrifice taught us several
things. One is that we're sinners. The second thing that it taught
us is we need a substitute. The third thing that it taught
us is that without the shedding of blood, there's no remission
of sin. Without the shedding of blood, there's no remission
of sin. The fourth thing it taught us is that God is satisfied with
the death of Christ on our behalf. That's what it teaches us. In
other words, the altar points to the crucified Christ. I know
I heard some feelings a couple of weeks ago, but we have no
altar down here. The altar of God's elect is where?
In heaven, where Christ is. God's altar is the cross of Jesus
Christ. Never forget it. And he offered
his own sacrifice. And that sacrifice was his darling
son. And guess what? God was pleased
with it. I think I'd be pleased with what
God's pleased with, wouldn't you? And I'm only coming to that
altar. I'm never coming to a human altar.
By the grace and mercy of God, let me make my way to God's altar
in glory from my heart. You know what the Bible said?
Man believes in the heart. With his mouth, confession is
made unto salvation. The altar is in glory and you
get there by faith. you trust the crucified Christ
God was pleased with that and as a consequence he stayed all
his enemies and you know when you are looking to Christ crucified
all your enemies are done away with I'm talking about outward
enemies and inward enemies and we got plenty of them don't we
and the preaching of the Christ does the cross does it not does
not the preaching of the cross lay away all of your fears and
doubts and and anxieties and stresses and troubles. And when
you look at what Christ accomplished for you on Calvary's tree, doesn't
fear go away. There is therefore now no condemnation
to them that are in Christ Jesus. When I looked at Calvary's tree,
you know what I hear from God? Don't fear a thing. Don't fear
a thing. God has subdued all my enemies
by his work on Calvary's tree. And then we saw that they laid
the foundation for the temple, didn't they? They laid the foundation
for the temple. The Bible tells us in 1 Corinthians
chapter 3, insofar as God is concerned, there's only one foundation
in this universe. Do you know what that foundation
is? Christ. Christ. Paul said there is no
other foundation that can be laid. Now watch this, which has
already been laid, which is Christ. That's the foundation that got
laid in the death of his son 2000 years ago, upon which you
and I, undeserving sinners, stand before God. We saw the conflict
that went on during that time when the foundation was laid.
Remember that? The old folk, they got caught up in the old
temple of Solomon and they were moaning and whining and crying
because they saw this little itty bitty foundation. They said,
ain't no way you can build anything but a 800 square foot condominium
on this. And they were crying, remember
that? But the young people were rejoicing. And we heard the mixed
sound and this great shout of those crying and those rejoicing.
And what I shared with you was the fact that the young people
rejoice because they had no reference point to those things that had
went on in time past. They weren't caught up in the
good old days. They weren't trapped by the former
days. The former days were better than these. They understood that
they were to press toward the mark of the high calling, which
is in Christ. They realized that, look, You
guys might have been whining and crying about something being
bigger and better in your own eyes But I'm just glad I got
a foundation. I'm glad in the year 2009 I can
stand on a foundation that God has established And then we learned
also that the reason why God allowed that foundation to be
smaller was because he was pointing to Christ crucified That foundation
that people must see by faith and not by sight See, bigger
is not always better. Are you hearing me? Bigger is
not always better. For we walk by faith and not
by sight. Though our outward man perish, our inner man is
renewed day by day. That's how the believer walks.
By the time Jesus came, he was so ignored, he was so belittled,
he was so marginalized, the only people that saw him were needy
sinners. And that's what's going on today. But in the eyes of
God, that little foundation called the God-man, the Theanthropos,
Jesus Christ, that foundation was enough to establish a church,
a temple that would encompass sinners from every nation, kindred,
tribe, and tongue from the beginning of time. until the end of time
on into eternity. Am I making some sense? That's
what God did during that time prior to the coming of Ezra. Ezra's on his way according to
chapter 7. Ezra's been in Babylon all this
time. The call was in 537 BC. I just want to lay the foundation.
The priest started laying the foundation in 537. It was in
539. In 537, Ezra chapter 3 says it
took two years for them to finally get there and lay that foundation.
If you read Ezra chapter 6 verse 15, the Bible tells us that the
temple was finally finished in the year 515 BC. I know the numbers
get you and you're ready to go to sleep, but hold on for a moment.
Think about it for a moment now. The call came in 537 B.C. Or
actually the work began in 537 B.C. And they didn't actually
finish the temple until 515 B.C. That's over 22 years. And yet
in Ezra chapter six, verse 15, it said it only took about four
years for them to get it done. What had happened? Here's what
had happened. When they started out in the work that God had
called them to do, They did run well for a while, but the enemy
started coming after them and harassing them and troubling
them. And if you read chapter four, the word stopped. Do you
guys remember that? And for a long time, the church
was held up in terms of its job and call and purpose to work
with God in establishing its witness in the world. But because
the Bible says, he that had begun a good work in you will also
perform it unto the day of Jesus Christ. God was faithful enough
to move in amongst all the difficulty of God's people and get the work
started again. Isn't that right? That's where
we are with Ezra. Why is God now calling Ezra to
the scene? Because God has already laid
the foundation for what we must now understand to be the external
framework of God's witness. They're back in the land. They
got their building. They got their foundation. They're
going through the rituals of work. They do in church. Will you hear me? But that's
not enough for the true and the living God. It's not enough for
us to say, come, let us go to the house of the Lord. Let's
just merely render praises to God. Let's give him 10% and let's
tip our hat to God and then going back to doing what we're doing.
That's not the aim of God. in the witness of God to this
world. Are you hearing me? The aim of God is not merely
that you and I make a transition from one geographical location
to another geographical location and give God 10 minutes of worship
and then move on out back into our carnal agendas. So the title
of my message, if you will, is this, the beautifying of the
temple, the adorning of the gospel. the beautifying of the temple,
the adorning of the gospel. What is the beautifying of the
temple? See, the exterior building has
been erected. We have an edifice. And if we
were to look at chapter six very carefully, that edifice actually
is large. Everything was done, saints,
according to plan, just like the king said, just like the
priesthood did it. But what we do not have as yet
in this temple is beauty. We don't have beauty yet. We
have a functioning facility, we have a place to go, but we
do not have as yet beauty. We have Bible studies, we have
prayer, we have worship, we have evangelical teams, we have ministries,
but we do not have as of yet Beauty. These things that I've just described
concerning the church and worship and Bible study and prayer and
all these things are essential. They are non-negotiables. You
will never profit in your service to God if you neglect the worship
of God, if you neglect the teaching of Scripture, if you neglect
prayer, if you neglect what we call the exhortation of Scripture,
which is called preaching, you will never profit before God.
I talk to people all the time who insinuate that, you know
what, I can serve God my own way. No, you can't. No, you can't. That's paganism. I was talking
to a young couple on Friday night. They came with a very innocent
question to a young man and young lady. It looked like they were
in their early 20s. And the question was, Pastor, we are contemplating
really whether or not it was necessary for us to be under
an organized ministry and to be part of a local church. And
when we look in the book of Acts, we found out that, you know,
Christians, they worship even in the wilderness. And I said
to him, with all due respect, have you read the whole of the
book of Acts? And do you understand that the book of Acts is what
we call a foundational book? It actually is dealing with the
fundamentals of the gathering of the people. But until you
read the epistles, you don't know that God has required every
local church to have pastors and elders and deacons and wise
men and wise women call fathers and mothers to lead the children
into a knowledge of Christ so that everybody can be built up
into the faith, into a knowledge of the Son of God so that we
can walk in the unity of the faith of Christ. And that can't
be done if we are willy nilly out there in the wilderness doing
what we want to do. Am I making some sense? Can't
be done. And immediately I jumped to parallels
because you have to see. You've got to help people in
the 21st century understand divine truth by using earthly things.
Well, Jesus did it, didn't he? So what I said was, you know,
we're having the same problem in our churches that we're having
in relationships. See, nobody wants to get married
today. Nobody wants to get married today.
But people want to talk and pretend like they're ready to enter into
responsible covenant relationship, but they don't want to sign on
the dotted line. Ladies, will you hear me? Don't even let the
fellas touch the package, let alone eat chips out of it. Don't
do it. We live in a generation of absolute
paganism. Absolute paganism and paganism
so permeates our life. Will you hear me? It's so permeates
our life that it has run up into the church and the preachers
don't even have any of power or Authority to say anything
about it. And so we got all kind of folks
Chambering, you know what chambering means? Read it for yourself Roman
chapter 13 verse 13 and 14. Paul says cease and from your
chambering, speaking to the Romans. Now see, the Romans knew how
to chamber. You think folk know how to chamber today? The Romans
knew how to chamber. Pastor, what is chambering? For
you who asked that honest question, I'm going to tell you. Chambering
is the shacking up that many of you are doing, thinking that
it's all right, because I love you. If you love her, sign on
the dotted line. Am I making some sense? Now you sisters, y'all jacked
up for even doing it. You got psychological problems.
You got emotional problems. You got, you know, problems with
your self-esteem and you think that you got to let brothers
touch the package in order for you to really have a relationship
with them. No, you don't. and so what we are dealing with
in our account is something that is critically far more important
than external religion alone see right now in the Ezra account
all we have are the fundamentals of exterior religion and we must
be warned by two passages first of all we read in the book of
2nd Timothy chapter 3 you don't have to go there Paul says in
the latter days some There will be perilous times men will be
lovers of themselves. They will be lovers of pleasure
more than lovers of God and then he says this Having a form of
godliness Having an exterior form of godliness, but denying
the power of the gospel that changes your life Are you hearing
me and prior to that verse having a form of godliness? Does this
hurt just hold on? having a form of godliness Silly
women, laden with sin, brought into captivity by ignorant men. So wherever your churches are
dominated by false religion, superficial religion, empty religion,
carnal religion, two things are going on. You've got uncouth,
unprincipled men who are engaged in profligacy with silly women. Do I need to make it plainer?
Are you hearing what I'm saying? Now watch this now. This is not
the aim. This is not the aim of God for
the people that he chose and redeemed by his own blood. The
beautifying of the temple. What is the beautifying of the
temple? What is the message here? This
is the last verse in your chapter. Listen to it, and I'm gonna build
on this several fundamental principles, and we'll see how this works
as Ezra is about to engage in his own work. I'm in Ezra chapter
7, and it's the last verse. Listen to it. This is a wonderful
statement. I'll build on it. In verse 28, Ezra is speaking,
and it says, And the king hath extended mercy unto me, or rather,
and God hath extended mercy unto me before the king and his counselors,
and before all the king's mighty princes. And I was strengthened
as the hand of the Lord my God was upon me. Watch this now.
And I gathered, oh, I'm sorry, it's in verse 27. I'll deal with
that at the end. Blessed be the Lord God of our
fathers, which hath put such a thing in the king's heart.
to beautify the house of the Lord, which is in Jerusalem. Blessed be the Lord God of our
fathers, which has put such a thing in the King's heart. And Ezra
says, to beautify the temple. Well, wait a minute, the temple
is built. Wait a minute, the priests are functioning. Wait
a minute, he's already shipped gold and silver and given all
kind of money for the temple, hasn't he? But there's really
something else needed in order for the temple to be beautified. And the king did that too. Do
you know what he did in order for God's temple to be beautified? He sent a man. he sent a man. The man he sent was Ezra. Ezra will be the means by which
God's temple will be beautified. Now bear with me a few more minutes.
Let me explain the beautification of the temple. And then let me
explain the significance of Ezra's place in the beautification.
And then we'll take up this message next week and the week after
that, the Lord willing, if you can handle it. What does it mean to beautify
the temple? What is beauty? The Hebrew phrase for beauty
is a word that is used repeatedly in the Old Testament. Interestingly
enough, primarily by King David. Do you know David knew something
about worship? He knew something about what
God required in worship. And if you're reading your own
time, 1 Chronicles chapter 26 verse 9, but the whole chapter
is devoted to David's doxology to God in the context of worship. And you read it again in the
Psalms several times, portions of it are in Psalm 96 and in
Psalm 97. But here is what God says. Now, will you hear me?
Pastor, what is the beautifying of the temple of God? worship
the Lord in the beauty of holiness. Lord, we are to worship you in
the beauty of holiness. Can we park it right there for
a moment? This is why I said a little earlier, do you understand
anything about the God who is holy? About a true and living
God who is holy and what God, the holy God demands from a holy
people? is beautiful worship. Beautiful
worship. Beautiful worship constitutes
worship that's based upon a right relationship between the people
of God and God himself. Are you guys hearing me? Let
me build on this. Beautiful worship is nothing
less than total commitment to Christ. Did you guys hear what
I just said? You can write that down, just
in case the rest of it goes past your head. Pastor said, beauty,
beautiful worship, that worship that God requires and God prescribes
is worship that constitutes complete commitment to Christ. God won't
accept anything else. That worship that's going to
induce the fire of God to come down in the person of the Holy
Ghost and warm the hearts of guilty needy sinners where God
gives his approval in our worship is complete commitment to Christ. Is that too much for us? Is that
too much for you? That's what God requires. Complete
commitment to Christ. Pastor, what does that look like?
It looks like the spirit of God that's poured in the hearts of
God's people, where he sheds abroad the love of Christ, where
for the people of God, Christ is everything. Did you hear what
I just said? What does complete commitment
look like to God and in the sight of God's people? Like this, everything
that we do, everything that we say, everything that we intend
to do is designed to bring glory to God through Christ. Got it? To beautify the temple
of the Lord then is for God's people to be so overwhelmed with
the person of Christ that everything they do testifies to his accomplishment
on Calvary Street and the subsequent benefits of that accomplishment
in your own life. Your life then becomes a witness
to the beauty of the Lord in the temple. Let me see if I can
break this down a little bit. David knew what he was saying
when he says, Lord, one thing have I desired. I think this
is Psalm 24, round verse 7. One thing have I desired, not
two, not three, one. One thing have I desired, and
that will I what? Seek after, that I may dwell
in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to inquire
in his temple. And to behold the beauty of the
Lord. Isn't that what he said? And
to behold the beauty of the Lord. Hold on with me for a moment.
The beauty of the Lord. What do you know? It's God's
temple. It's God's church. It's God's
people. It is the place where men and
women will behold God's beauty. God's beauty, God's glory, God's
holiness, God's fullness, God's majesty. How does this work,
Pastor? Well, practically the word beauty
simply means to boast. It means to vaunt. It means to
magnify. Are you guys hearing me? Pastor,
help me a little bit. Okay, I'm gonna help you. Don't
get mad at this one. But you know, our wives, when
we first marry them, we tell them, you are gorgeous. You are
beautiful. Absolutely stunning. You don't
need no makeup. Isn't that what we say? And we
mean that from the depths of our heart. Don't we mean that? My wife is gorgeous to me, absolutely
stunning. Even now, she looks younger than
my daughters to me. And so we say, sweetheart, you
don't need to put on any makeup. But can I tell you something?
That's not the true gospel. Let me help you a little bit.
The true gospel is, The woman is to do everything she can to
beautify herself. For her beauty is his beauty. Did you get it? Her beauty is
his beauty. And when the bride of Christ
is not interested in beautifying herself, she's not interested
in being the Lord's beauty. Now hold on with me for, I can
see I got about 10, 15 more minutes, so I'm gonna ride this one on
out. Hold on with me now for a moment. Now watch this now.
I wanna make sure those of you who appreciate me now, you sisters
who appreciate me, my stock in value has gone up exponentially
with you. Listen to me now. I wanna make sure you understand
that to utilize the makeup right is what we're talking about.
Okay? Please hear me. Please hear me.
Because, because the issue, the issue is not how much makeup
is in the right place and in the right spot. And when you
do it just right, what you do is you magnify the features.
You bring out the natural beauty of the person. See, I sound like
I've gone to cosmetology school, right? I have not. I have not. But what I'm getting at is this.
Here's what I'm getting at. God, God himself created cosmetology. The Greek word cosmos is the
word for the world. And when God created this world,
God draped this world with beauty because that beauty reflects
his own beauty. Are you hearing what I'm saying?
And the Bible tells us concerning the beauty of the Lord that it
has a corresponding relationship between Christ and the church.
If you read Isaiah chapter 61, you find a conversation in the
latter part of Isaiah 61 between Christ and the church as a bridegroom
decks himself and as the bride adorns herself. You see the two,
they can't wait to get married. They can't wait to enter into
conjugal relations. And what they're doing is beautifying
themselves. They're beautifying themselves.
And the Bible tells us that the beauty of the church is nothing
less than the beauty of God given to the church. So the idea of
beautifying the church has everything to do with our corresponding
passage, which I want you to go to now, which is in the book
of Titus, Titus chapter two, go there for a moment. Titus
chapter two, this is so very important. And then we'll come
back and we'll wrap up our introduction to Ezra and then we'll go to
work next week. In Titus chapter two, Paul, after
many, many, many years of preaching, many, many years of laying the
foundation of the gospel, many, many years, of having established
local churches, he saw that what was required for every local
church, and John told us in John, third John, that the local church
is called the elect lady. Did you guys get that? John told
us that the local church is called the elect lady. Christ only has
one bride. So she's called the elect lady.
And so what we are told by Paul, because what Paul understood
was when he, by the spirit of God was used to call out God's
bride, they were established in all of these different trenches,
right? All these different cities. And these cities were, these
were bad cities. These were tow up cities. These
were, these were very difficult places to live. And he found
himself having to write the epistles to the churches to tell them
how to sustain their witness in the midst of these heathen
lands. In other words, listen to me,
ladies and gentlemen, because we're all the blood of Christ.
You're not gonna sustain your beauty by just standing around. The winds and the storms and
the trials and the jackals and the dragons and your neighbors
and the enemy will seek to pluck away and diminish and deteriorate
your beauty if you don't fight to sustain it. Listen to me,
I'm talking spiritual. Are you hearing me? I'm talking
about spiritual things. I'm talking about heart issues. I'm talking
about the gospel. I'm talking about priorities.
I'm talking about your commitment to God. I'm talking about making
sure that you prioritize your time. I'm talking about making
sure that you keep your mind stayed on Christ. I'm talking
about you learning how to avoid things that don't build you up.
I'm talking about you maintaining a responsible witness as a child
of God to continue to glorify the one who loved you and bought
you. That's what I'm talking about. And I'm talking about
this on a local level as well as on a personal level. As we
go through the book of Romans chapter 12 and we're in chapter
12 now, we're going to be dealing with this. We're going to be
dealing with this in the 12th chapter of the book of Romans.
But what I'm talking about is what Paul understood was he couldn't
merely lay the foundation of the gospel and leave those churches
because the enemy was coming in and had he left them alone. The church in Paul's day would
have been like the church in Nehemiah's day. See, when we
get to Nehemiah, Nehemiah will have gotten on his donkey in
the middle of the night and rode all the way around Jerusalem
and he would have saw the gates burned and the walls broken down
and dump heaps everywhere. Nothing beautiful about the temple.
Nothing. Why? Because the beauty of the
temple must be sustained by the people who are called to be the
witness of the temple. And so here's what Paul says.
I want you to hear what it says. Hear what it says. Paul says
this in Titus chapter two. Now Titus was one of the preachers
in Crete. Crete was where a whole bunch
of pagans were. And here's what he says. I'm
going to start at verse nine and I'm going to go through verse
15. And I just want you to hear this. This is the concept of
beautifying the temple, which is the same as what he's going
to give us over here in the latter part of verse 10. Listen to it.
Exhort servants to be obedient unto their own masters and to
please them well in a few things. Is that what it says? Now the
servants here correspond to true believers, we're slaves of righteousness.
And to be obedient to our own master means that we are to be
obedient to Christ. Did you get that? And to please
him well in everything. Not answering again, not talking
back. Verse 10, not purloining. Uh-oh, one of those long words.
You know what that means? Stealing. Back in those days, thieves used
to steal. There's a whole bunch of thieves in the church stealing
God's glory today in the name of Jesus. Now notice what he says, not
purloining, not being known for covetousness or not stealing
everything that's not tied down. See, when the Lord is your shepherd,
you shall not what? Isn't that right? When you see
a child of God acting like a beggarly individual and taking up everything
that's not tied down He's indicating that the Lord is not his sufficient
shepherd Am I making some sense? All right, then straighten your
attitude out listen to it But showing all good fidelity, you
know what good fidelity means faithfulness to your master now
watch this That they may adorn the doctrine of God our Savior
in all things. Do you see the word adorn? That's
what you do when you get up and sit in the mirror and start petting.
That's called adorning. That's called adorning. Did you
get that? Listen to me. When the people
of God love Christ and love his word, what we do is adorn the
doctrine of the gospel by a life that's consistent in our walk
with the Savior. How do we adorn the gospel? By loving Christ. How do we adorn
the gospel? By living for Christ. How do
we adorn the gospel? By looking to Christ. How do
we adorn the gospel? By talking about Christ. How
do we adorn the gospel? By thinking about Christ, by
meditating on Christ, by rejoicing in Christ, by being overwhelmed
with Christ. See, because the one person that
we care about seeing our beauty is Christ. And then may the world,
by the mercies of God, see our beauty in Him. But first and
foremost, what God is calling you and me to is the worship
of God in spirit and in truth. Is the worship of God from the
depths of our soul because of the grace of God and because
He revealed His glory to us. The glory of the only begotten
of the Father, full of grace and truth, Jesus Christ, who
is the glory of God. Now listen to me, Saint, as I
move on back. You will beautify yourself in the beauty of Christ
when you see his beauty. Did you hear what I just said?
You will beautify yourself in the beauty of Christ when you
see his beauty. This is what is meant when the
Bible says we all with open face are beholding, as it were, in
a mirror the glory of the Lord. And because we are beholding
his glory, we are being changed. from glory to glory, even as
by the Spirit of God. Am I making some sense? How then
does the church adorn the gospel? By keeping a constant fix on
that glory that must change you when you look at it. See, what
David said in all of the other places where he talked about
the beauty of the Lord was this. In Zion, the perfection of beauty
doth shine. Zion that's the church of the
Living God the perfection of beauty now what is the perfection
of beauty God himself and it shines in the church of the Living
God where the gospel is preached and where Christ is loved guess
what happens the glory of God shines out into the life of God's
people and you must adorn him you must adorn him you must adorn
him you must adorn him And if you don't, it's because you haven't
seen him. Am I making some sense? It's because you haven't seen
him. Listen to what Paul says now. Here comes some of the practical
manifestations of adorning him. For, verse 11, for the grace
of God that brings salvation hath appeared to all men, teaching
us, grace teaches, doesn't it? This is radically different teaching
than law. Grace teaches. that denying ungodliness. See, that's natural for a brother
that loves Christ. For a sister that loves Christ,
denying ungodliness, that's what I do. That's what I desire to
do. That's what I'm passionate about. That's what I long for.
Isn't that true for you? I want Christ and I want nothing
but Christ, which means I defy the passions of my fallen nature
that desire to drive me into states of ungodliness. I hate
what I do. I hate what I do. Do you? I hate
what I do. And God sees that I hate it.
Are you hearing me? God sees that I hate it. And
he loves the fact that I hate it because my hating it is his
grace in my life. Listen to it now. Let me go on
for a few more minutes. Denying ungodliness and worldly lust.
Y'all can work on that. We should live soberly, righteously
and godly in this present world. Why? We're looking for that blessed
hope, aren't we? Our elder talked about it this
morning. And the glorious appearing of the great God and our Savior,
Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us. See right there? That's
it. Are you done? I'm done. Are you done? I'm done. Are you done? Done. Done. Done. Who gave himself. He didn't give something, he
gave himself. He didn't give what he had, he gave himself.
He didn't give his gifts, he gave himself. He didn't give
his attributes, he gave himself. He didn't give his character,
he gave himself. He didn't give his work, Christ
gave himself. Christ gave himself. Somebody's
gonna be blessed by that today. He gave himself. See, to me that
sounds like Matrimony terms that sounds like the kind of stuff
that makes for marriage in there, right? the husband gave himself
Listen to it. He gave himself for us that he
might redeem us From all iniquity and purify unto himself a peculiar
people zealous of what? These things speak and exhort
and rebuke with all authority and let no man despise you I
know what Paul is doing. Go back to chapter 7 so I can
wrap this up. I'm going to share with you 7 portfolios or 5 portfolios
of Ezra and we're going to close. I know what Paul was doing. You
know what he was doing? He was saying, sister, keep yourself looking right for
your husband. Isn't that what he was saying?
See, sisters, keep yourself looking right for your husband. There's
plenty harlots out there, plenty prostitutes out there for the
rest of those cats. have been separated to the God
who loved you and gave himself for you. Got it? How's that gonna get done? What's
the connection between the beauty of holiness and a man? Here it
is. In order for you and I to be
all that I said that we must do and be, we need a man whose
interest in us exceeds our interest in ourselves. Got it? In order for me to be what God
wants me to be, I need a man whose interest in me exceeds
my own interest in myself. I need a man whom God has raised
up. I need a man whom God has raised up, whose name is Ezra.
You know what his name means? The Lord is my help. I need help,
don't you? And I need help from God. I need
a man who is a priest. who is an authentic, legitimate
priest. He is so authentic and legitimate
that you can trace his lineage all the way back to Aaron. What
that means is, I eldest said, well, that just means that he
was a son of Aaron. It means more than that. It means that he was
uncontrovertibly qualified to be the mediator and surety and
substitute of his people. It means that there was no way
possible for God to reject him because he was in the bloodline
of God's elect. See, if you were to read chapters
4 and 5, you'd find out that a bunch of those priests were
sneaking into Jerusalem and they didn't have any genealogies.
Ezra and Nehemiah got to fix that. That corresponds to false
preachers who call themselves called of God but haven't actually
been anointed by God and quickened by a spirit and given the gospel
of the grace of God and used by God for the salvation of sinners.
False priests. I need a priest, don't you? Why
do I need a priest? As I said it earlier, I need
a priest to stand between me and God, but I need more than
a priest. You know what I need? I need a scribe. I need a scribe. The Bible says in Ezra chapter
seven, that Ezra was a ready scribe. You know what that was? He was a theologian. He was a
person that knew the word of God. His job was to understand
the scriptures. His job was to expound the scriptures.
His job was to enforce the scriptures. Now watch this. I don't need
a teacher. I need a scribe. And I need a
scribe who is also a priest. Can I help you a little bit with
that? Teachers are cool. Don't get me wrong. We need teachers.
But all teachers can do is academically share with you truth. But academic
truth doesn't do enough to go down into your soul and to transform
you into the image of Christ. You need a priest who is also
a scribe, who is able to explain the word of God for you and bring
the truth of that word into your heart because he has a connection
with the true and the living God by which the spirit of God
can take that truth and change your life. Am I making some sense? See, I need a priest scribe.
Isn't that good? I need a priest scribe. I need
a scribe who can explain the law to me, then go to his father
and say, father, make him like me and God do it. See, I need
the work of the third person who is called the spirit of truth,
the spirit of Christ, the spirit of the father to take the things
of Christ and show them to me and glorify Christ in my heart
and in my life to make the word effectual in my soul. That's
what I need. That's what you need too. That's
what you need, too. And I need a man, according to
Ezra 7, that's ready to do that. The Bible says he was a ready
scribe. The Bible says he was a ready
scribe. In our outline, it talks about Ezra. He's a priest. He's
a scribe. But watch this now. I need a
man upon whose hand the Lord is. That's what the text says.
And the good hand of God was upon Ezra. And the good hand
of God was upon Ezra. the good hand of God. That's
what I need. I need a priest and a scribe upon whose hand
the Lord is so that I know that if that priest and scribe petitions
for me, God's going to hear him. God's going to hear him. I also
need a priest and a scribe, not only whose hand the Lord is upon,
but whose heart, whose heart, whose heart given over to do
two things know the law that's what it first is then watch this
do it I Need a scribe and a priest to do the law for me That's what
the text said and Ezra set his heart to know the law and to
do the law and then to teach it Don't teach me something that
you ain't done That's not salvation. That's legalism. That's works.
See, I need somebody to do it first for me and then explain
it to me and tell me what he did for me and then encourage
me to do the same. And then while I feel like doing
it, because I'm going to try to do it, he'll remind me that
he already did it for me. So in the eyes of God, it's already
done. But I need you to do it anyway, because by your attempting
to do it shows me that you love me. Isn't that good? And then I need a priest and
a scribe, because the scribe, he takes things old and he takes
things new and he makes them plain to the people of God. Now
what Jesus said in Matthew 13, the scribe knows how to take
old things and new things and show the truth in both of those
things. That's what we do when we expound the gospel, isn't
that right? We take the Old Testament and the New Testament, and we
say that the Old Testament is the New Testament concealed,
the New Testament, the Old Testament revealed, and both of them point
to one man, and that's Christ. That's what the scribe does.
He preaches Christ. He teaches Christ and he works
effectually to see to it that the body looks just like Christ. That's what Ezra's getting ready
to do. That's what Ezra's getting ready to do. And then one more
thing I'm done right here. I love this. I love this. I need
a priest who knows how to worship God. I need a priest who knows
how to worship God. I have to be taught how to worship
God. Don't you? Don't look at me saints. to be your example
of worshiping God. Look to Christ. But I want you
to see what Ezra does. This here is the last point in
our portfolio of Ezra. It's in chapter 7, verse 27 and
28. I'll close here. Listen to what
it says. This is Ezra praising God for
all that God has determined to do for his people through him. Verse 28. Verse 27, blessed be
the Lord God of our fathers, which has put such a thing in
the king's heart to beautify the house of the Lord, which
is in Jerusalem and hath extended mercy unto me before the king
and his counselors and before all the king's mighty princes.
And I was strengthened. as the hand of the Lord my God
was upon me. Now watch this, the net effect
and I gathered together out of Israel, the chief men to go up
with me. See, we have a great foreshadowing
of Christ and his apostles who are about to go forth in the
ministry of establishing the true worship of God in Israel. But I don't want you to miss
the real beauty of this. God's doing this. God's doing
this because God cares for our welfare and our salvation infinitely
more than even we do. Isn't that amazing? Isn't that
amazing? I was talking to our men about
it last night. Are you saved today? Have you
been born again? Have you seen the glory of God
in Christ? Does your heart love to contemplate the Savior? Do
you remember when you were in darkness? Do you remember when
you were in the pit? Do you marvel at the fact that
now you are walking in the light? That you're standing before God
as the righteousness of God in Christ? Well, it didn't start
with you. It started with a God who, before
the world began, chose and determined and decreed and purposed infallibly
to bring you to Himself. And it's happening just like
that right now. This ought to keep you stuck
for the next week. I'm saved! I'm saved! By the grace of God, I'm saved.
It's an absolute miracle of grace that I'm saved. Why did God look
upon me? Why did God touch me? Why did
God save me? Why did God call me? These are
the whys that should be running through your heart all the time.
Why, why, why, why, why? Because of his great love wherewith
he loved us in Christ. Amen.