Ezra chapter 1, beginning at verse 1. Now in the first year of Cyrus
king of Persia, that the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah
might be fulfilled, the Lord stirred up the spirit of Cyrus
king of Persia, that he made a proclamation throughout all
his kingdom, and put it also in writing, saying, Thus saith
Cyrus, king of Persia, The Lord God of heaven hath given me all
the kingdoms of the earth, and hath 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 at Judah, and build the house of the Lord
God of Israel. He is the God which is in Jerusalem. And whosoever remaineth in any
place where he sojourneth, let the men of his place help him
with silver, and with gold, and with goods, and with beasts beside
the free will offering for the house of God. that is in Jerusalem. Then rose up the chief of the
fathers of Judah and Benjamin, and the priests and the Levites,
and all them whose spirit God had raised, to go up to build
the house of the Lord, which is in Jerusalem. And all they
that were among them strengthened their hands with vessels of silver,
with gold, with goods, with beasts, with precious things, beside
all that was willingly offered. Also Cyrus the king brought forth
the vessels of the house of the Lord, which Nebuchadnezzar had
brought forth out of Jerusalem, and had put them in the house
of his gods. Even those did Cyrus, king of
Persia, bring forth by the hand of Mithridat, the treasurer,
and married them to Shethazar, the prince of Judah. And this
is the number of them, 30 chargers of silver, 1,000 chargers, 30
chargers of gold, 1,000 chargers of silver, 9 and 20 knives. 30
basins of gold and silver basins of a second sort, 410, and other
vessels, 1,000. And they took all of these vessels
back to Jerusalem with them in the building of the temple. I
wanted to look at this passage this evening, not so much as
what these men did, but what is here to teach you and I, a
lesson to instruct us. And that would be, how can you
and I know the will of God? How can we know the will of God? We have congregations and preachers,
committees, church committees have sought the answer for this
question ever since there's been a church. How can you and I as
individuals, and especially as a local church, know the will
of God? And I'm not talking this evening
about the will of God in salvation, the will of God in redemption.
I'm not talking about that. If you and I want to know the
will of God in those matters, there's but one place to go to,
and that's the Scriptures. We must go to the Scriptures
to know that. In the whole matter of salvation,
it's according to God's eternal purpose. And the only way we
can know anything about God's eternal purpose in redemption
is go to the Scriptures to find it out. And here's what he says
about that, that God has an eternal purpose, Ephesians 3.10, which
he purchased in Christ Jesus the Lord. And here's what that
purpose is. Here it is in a nutshell. And
the only way we can know God's will in this eternal purpose
is go to the Word of God. In Ephesians 1, 5, he said that
he has predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus
Christ according to the good pleasure of his will. In other
words, God has ordained certain men and women to be saved, to
be adopted to children, to come to faith in Christ, and he's
done that according to his will. And the only way you and I can
know that is find it in the Scripture. The redeeming death of the Lord
Jesus Christ, His atonement for our sins, that's according to
God's will. He gave Himself for our sins
according to the will of God. Galatians 1.4. We have to go
to the Word of God to find out why Jesus Christ hung on that
cross. It was to redeem us from our sins according to the will
of God. And every believer can trace
his calling and regeneration back to the will of God. If you
want to know why God called you and regenerated you, you can
go to the Scriptures to find out. And in James 1.18, he tells
us God of His own will begotten with the Word of Truth. As many
as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of
God, even to them that believe on His name, which were born,
not of the will of the flesh, not of blood, not of the will
of man, but of the will of God, were born of God's will. We can
know that from the Holy Scripture. And every believer continues
in the faith, he endures hardness as a good soldier, he lives in
hope and patience, he waits upon the Lord, and he can be sure
of the unchanging will of God in this matter, that he'll never
fall away. It's God's will that every last
believer endure until the end. Now, you can't say I don't feel
that way. You can't say that's not my opinion.
That's not what I was taught when I was growing up. If you
and I want to know the will of God concerning the preservation
of the saints and the perseverance of the saints, where do we go
to find out God's will? We go to His Bible, don't we?
We go to His Bible. This is the will. Glenn, you
quote this verse all the time, John 6, 39. This is the will
of Him that sent me, that of all which He hath given me, I
should lose nothing, but raise it up again at the last day."
Jesus Christ began a work of faith in their heart, and He's
the finisher of that faith. We're not of them who draw back
into perdition, but of those who keep on believing to the
saving of our souls. That's God's will, and we have
to go to the Scriptures to find that out, don't we? And every
last believer, if you're here tonight and you're a believer
in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you're saved according to God's
will, then you can know this. You can have the assurance of
this. You'll wind up in heaven someday. Now, that's God's will. That's God's will. Father, this
is the will. This is my will. This is my will. The will of the Son of God. And
His will is the Father's will. That of all those that You've
given me, that they'll be with me someday. that they'll behold
my glory, which you've given to me. For you love me before
the foundation of the world." Now that's the will of God, and
the only way we can know the will of God in redemption and
salvation is to go to the Word and find it out. But that's not what I'm looking
at, you see. I'm talking about something else
altogether. How can you and I, especially as a congregation,
and the reason I look at this this evening is because this
question has been asked me. I have asked other pastors. When you and I, when you and
I was just a small group wanting to buy a building, most of you
probably remember that, was meeting in Holmes. And we looked at one
or two more places, then we found this place. I tell you, I have
to express my heart feeling. I just wasn't for sure if it
was God's will for us to buy this place or not. Looking back
on it now, you can say, well, I think it was His will. But
how did we know that then? As a congregation, when we plan
to do something, When we want to start a project, and we want
to do this, and we want to do that, how can we get our heads
together and say, I believe this is God's will? Is there a way
we can know that it's God's will for us to do this? Well, that's what I want to look
at this evening, here in this first chapter. But let's begin
with this chapter and look at it like this. Before we get to
that, let's build up to it like this. This Persian, the Persian
empire, boy it's a mighty, mighty empire. You've studied the baptism. Back there somewhere in 400 years
before Christ, 450 years, I think this was 458 years or something
like that before Christ. But this Persian empire was a
mighty empire. And this king, Silas, was a mighty
king. He ruled over all the kingdoms
of this world as far as I know, and I don't know if he's bragging
or not, but that's what he said here in verse 2, that he was
ruler over all the kingdoms of the earth. Now that's what he
said, and that's what some of the commentators said. And if
there's any little kingdom somewhere that he didn't rule over, it's
just because he hasn't got around to it yet. He is a mighty king. But I want you to notice something
here that he acknowledged. That there's a lot of politicians,
and there's a lot of kings, and there's a lot of presidents who
want to acknowledge what this man acknowledged. Now he's a
heathen king. Nothing that I read about him
even suggests that he knew the Lord, that he was a saved man.
But he knew this much about God and about himself. And look what
he said in verse 2. Thus saith Cyrus king of Persia,
The Lord God of heaven hath given me all the kingdoms of the earth. He had enough sense to know that,
didn't he? I'm not here by my appointment.
I'm not here just because I fought to conquer these kingdoms. But
I'm here at God's appointment. God has given me these kingdoms.
Look over here in Daniel with me. In Daniel chapter 4. This
is a whole Ezra chapter 1. Don't lose that. Turn over here
if you go to Ezekiel. Turn over just one more book
to Daniel, chapter 4. Here's another great king, Nebuchadnezzar. He was king over Babylon. Syria
is the one that conquered Babylon, went in and took Babylon itself,
the city of Babylon. Then the whole Babylonian empire
fell to the kings of Persia. But look here what this great
Nebuchadnezzar said. He was standing out on his balcony
one day and looking out over the kingdom, the hanging gardens,
and his heart was lifted up in pride. And look what he said
in Daniel chapter 4, verse 30. The king spake, King Nebuchadnezzar,
spake and said, Is not this great Babylon that I have built for
the house of the kingdom? by the might of my power and
for the honor of my majesty. And while the word was in the
king's mouth, there fell a voice from heaven, saying, O king Nebuchadnezzar,
to thee it is spoken, the kingdom is departed from thee, and they
shall drive thee from men, and thy dwelling shall be with the
beast of the field, and they shall make thee to eat grass
like an oxen, and seven times shall pass over thee until thou
knowest. that the Most High ruleth in
the kingdom of men, and look at this, he giveth it to whosoever
he will. That's what God said to this
mighty king. He said, I'm going to humble
you and teach you something, that I own you and I own the
kingdoms of this world. You talk about building yourself
an empire. I gave you that. And look what he said after Nebuchadnezzar.
Look what he said in verse 36. when the seven times had passed
over it. And at the same time, my reason
returned unto me, Nebuchadnezzar said, and for the glory of my
kingdom, my honor and the brightness returned unto me, and my counselors
and my Lord sought unto me, and I was established in my kingdom,
and excellent majesty was added to me. And look at what he said.
And I, Nebuchadnezzar, praise and extol and honor the king
of heaven. All whose works are true, and
His ways are judgment, and those that walk in pride, He is able
to abase." Something else about this king,
too. Look back over here in Ezra chapter 1 again. Something else
about this king. Look over here at Ezra chapter
1. And you see this, and this is
so confident to you and I, because we're nobodies. We have no power
in the governments. The church really has no power
in these governments. They pretty much do with us what
they want to do. They get out of control now,
out of our control. Look where our government's headed
today. We don't have much. The church don't have much control
over it. Religion might, but the church doesn't. But I tell
you somebody who does control these politicians, I tell you
somebody who does control these kings, and that's the Lord Himself. He said right here in verse 1,
look what He said, 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. Who is it that rules this king?
Well, the Lord ruled it. The Lord stirred up his spirit.
The Lord gave him a desire in his heart, gave him some understanding
and a will. What does the Scripture say about
the kings of this earth? Their heart is in the hands of
the Lord. Here was the greatest ruler upon
this earth. Ruled all the kingdoms of the
world. And one day the Lord moved upon his heart and said, I want
you to let my people go and command them to build me a temple back
there at Jerusalem. And you know what he did? He
sent out a proclamation and said, I want all you people to go back
to Jerusalem and build the Lord's temple. Why did he say that?
His heart was in the hands of the Lord. Somebody said, boy,
I wish we could get a Christian president. Do you know any Christian
that wants to be president? Do you know any true believer
that would want to be elected president? And be put in a position
like that? But you see, brothers and sisters,
it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. I wouldn't
wish our presidency off on any Christian name. I wouldn't want
to see a man leave the ministry and go to be a president, would
you? Wouldn't that be awful? But it doesn't matter if the
president is a Christian man or a heathen man. His heart is
in the hands of the Lord. It may be King David, it may
be King Cyrus, it may be King Hussein, but his heart is in
the hands of the Lord. And as the rivers of water, the
Lord turns it wherever He will. That's why we don't, that's why
you and I shouldn't talk about our rulers. We can put pressure
on them, elect them into office, or put them out of office if
we can, but here's why we don't have to cuss them and run them
down, is because we know who set them down. And here's why
we can pray for them and love them, the good ones and the bad
ones, because we know who controls them. We know that. Their heart is in the hands of
the Lord. The Lord stirred up his mind,
his heart, and said, Go build me a house. Go build me a house. Look here in Ephesians right
quickly, and I'll get around in just a minute to what I want
to show you from this text, but I want to show you this stuff
first. Look in Ephesians chapter 1. This is so comforting for you
and I. I imagine we'll really need to get a hold of these Scriptures
as we see times worsening. Because if the church is going
to come in with persecutions in the last days that the Scripture
seems like it teaches that it will, I tell you, a lot of that
persecution is going to come from the governments. It's probably
going to come from our government too. And the laws that they pass
and the laws that they enforce. And this is comforting to know
who reigns. Who reigns? Look what he says
in Ephesians chapter 1, look here in verse 20, talking about
the power of God, which He wrought in Christ when He raised Him
from the dead and set Him at His own right hand in the heavenly
places, far above all principalities and powers and might and dominion
and every name that's named, not only in this world but that
also which is to come. And God hath put all things under
his feet, and gave him to be head over all things to the church. He's head over all things, but
he's just not head over all things, but in reverence to the church,
as it regards the church. He rules everything in this world,
kings and paupers, the birds of the air, the seas, and the
rivers, and the streams, and the elements. He rules everything
for the good and the glory of His church. He ain't just ruling,
but He's ruling for the glory of His church in reference to
His church. Now ain't that comforting? Ain't
that comforting? You and I can go through this
life. We can respect our leaders. We can pray for them, but we
don't have to live in terror. We can regard the elements. I'm not going to go out in a
thunderstorm and stick up a metal pole up in the air, are you?
The Lord rules over that. We ain't going to do that. He
ain't going to handle poisonous snakes. It'd be silly to do that. But we know who rules over all
these things, don't we? The Lord rules over us. And He
rules over these things for the good of His church. So we don't
have to live in dread. I don't care what our circumstances
is. What kind of political devastating time. Wars and rumors of war.
It's coming already in our day, isn't it? But we don't have to
be afraid. Don't let your heart be troubled.
These things must come to pass. Here's what the Lord said. Sanctify the Lord in your heart.
Let Him be your fear. Let Him be your dread. Trust
in the Lord, and you don't have to be afraid. Trust in this reigning
Lord that's the head of all things, whose heart, the King's heart
is in His hand. That's who we trust to. Here's the question this evening
that I brought up at the very beginning. How can we know the will of God
in a thing? If we want to do something as
a congregation, how can we know it's God's will for us to do
it? Somebody said, well, let's just
pray about it. Well, I tell you that's one of the best things
we can do is pray about something. Seek the Lord. Before we do something
as a congregation, seek the Lord and pray to Him about it. But
after you've done that, and you still don't know, what do we
do then? I mean, when we say about, let's
pray about it. Let's pray the Lord give us an
answer. Well, what kind of answer do we look for when we pray?
How do we think the Lord's going to answer us? You think you're going to have
a dream? Or see a vision? Or have a feeling? How do we
still know after we pray? How do we know when He answers
us to say, do this or do that? We have a missionary that we
want to support. How do we know it's God's will
to support that particular missionary? We bought some property over
here trying to. I wonder sometimes if it's even
God's will for us to get mixed up in that. But here we are in
the middle of it. And I sometimes wonder, was it even God's will?
So how can we know? Well, I want to give you four
things this evening. Four things, and it won't take
me long. And the first of all is this. There's no doubt, as
we read the scripture, that it was God's will for these Jews
to leave Babylon and go back to Jerusalem and build that temple.
We know that this evening from looking in retrospect here. We
know that. But how did they know it? How
could they tell it was God's will? Here this teen rose up
and said, go back up there. Was that enough to say, is it
God's? Don't you think they wondered in their hearts, now is this
God's will or not? Here we've got down here and
we've settled in, we've got our houses, we've got our jobs, we've
got our families. Now we're just going to pull
up and head back to Jerusalem to build a temple? How can we
know it's God's will? Put yourself in their shoes.
Don't you think they had some struggles in their hearts about
this, just like you and I did about the will of God? So the
first thing is this. When we seek to discern God's
will, first of all, is it agreeable with the Holy Scripture? Is it
agreeable with the Holy Scripture? And I say that because we find
this in verse 1. Look at this. In the first year
of Cyrus, king of Persia, that the word of the Lord by the mouth
of Jeremiah might be fulfilled." Now, what's he talking about?
Well, the Lord spoke to Jeremiah while they were being led off
into captivity to begin with. In Jeremiah 29.10, here's what
the Lord told Jeremiah. Thus saith the Lord, that after
seventy years be accomplished at Babylon, I will visit you,
and perform my good work toward you, and cause in you to return
to this place." After seventy years. It was written in the
scripture. Seventy years they stayed in captivity, and one
day a man by the name of Daniel, remember Daniel and the dental
lines? He was reading the book of Jeremiah, and he ran across
that verse in Jeremiah 29. And he said, Oh, my soul, it's
time to go back. It's according to God's will.
How do you know? Right here it is in his Bible. I found it there. And he began to pray and seek
the Lord and repentance that great prayer. So first and foremost
is this. Is it agreeable? with the Holy
Scripture? Or is it disagreeable to the
Holy Scripture? I say that for this reason. When
you and I purpose to do something as a congregation, you won't
go to the Scripture and say, well, yeah, you'll find it here
in a certain chapter, a certain verse that you all should have
bought this property off of. Go right there and you can find
it. That'd be easy. If it's that easy, that'd be great, wouldn't
it? But you won't find that in So what we have to look at first
and foremost is, is it against the Scriptures? Will it violate
the Scriptures if you and I decide that we want to do a thing? If
I come to you and I say, there's a group of people, a small group
of people here in town, and they take up money and food, and they're
not affiliated with any congregation or political group, they just
take up money and food and they distribute it, distribute it
to the poor. Do we want to help them people?
Well, we say, you know, that's not contrary to the Scripture.
You have the poor with you always, and whenever you please, you
can help them out. So it's not disagreeable to the Scripture,
but if I come to you and I said, there's a group here in Muncie
that I think we ought to start giving some money to everybody
and help them. They need some money. And you
say, who is it? I say, it's Planned Parenthood. What would you say? Now wait
a minute, brother. Wait a minute. I know something about those
people. Don't go with a multitude to do evil. So he'd be disagreeable to the
Scripture, wouldn't he? First and foremost, try to discern
if it's agreeable or disagreeable to the Word of God. And I'd say,
brothers and sisters, that's one of the most important things
in finding the will of God. In my daily life, What I do,
where I work, where I go, what I see, what I hear. And it's
the most important thing the church can remember when we discern
God's will before we do something. It's a scripture. It's a scripture. And secondly is this, and it's
written here in verse 2. Is it for the glory of God? Is it for the glory of God? And
you find this year in verse 2, the king gave this commandment
to the Jews to go to Jerusalem and build the Lord a house. Build a house. Build a temple. It had been torn down. It lay
in ruins at this time. And the Scripture tells us here,
this book here tells us that there were some ancient men that
was here in captivity and they were there and they saw the first
temple. They remember how glorious it was and what went on there. Jerusalem was a place where the
Lord chose to put His name at. That's where they brought the
sacrifices to the priests and they offered them. And sometimes
the glory of the Lord would be seen in that place. He's your
can of glory. And these old men that were here
in captivity, they remembered that. And boy, they missed the
glory of God. And they got their heads together.
When the king said, go out and build a house, they got their
heads together and said, listen, listen, this is for God's glory. It may cost us some sweat. It
may cost us some of our possessions. We may have to put blisters on
our hands to do it, but let's do it because this is God's Word. It's for God's glory. And brothers
and sisters, that's one of the things that you and I should
be so careful. When we do anything, whatever
you do in word or deed, where you eat or drink, whatever you
do, do all to the glory of God. Boy, that would stop people from
doing a lot of stuff, wouldn't it? A lot of foolishness is going
on in the native religion today. A lot of it would stop if the
congregation would sit down and say, wait just a minute, wait
a minute. You fellows want to build a million
dollar gym, a family life center. Let me ask you this question.
Is this for God's glory? Answer that. If it is, we'll
do it. If it ain't, we won't. That's
the first thing. That's the second thing that
they say. If we're doing it just to be
recognized by this world, or just to be recognized by some
other churches, then we're wrong in doing it. If we're doing something
just to brag about it, then we're wrong in doing it. If we're doing something
just because we think somebody else thinks we should do it,
we're wrong. We're wrong. We're doing it for His glory. First and foremost, for His glory,
then it's right to do it. We can say the Lord may be in
this thing. And brothers and sisters, I think I can speak
for some of you, and God help me, I can speak for myself. I'm
not here this evening just to be seen or heard or somebody
pat me on the back. I'm not here because some other
churches think we need to carry on the work here, but we're here
for this reason. And that's for God's glory. And if it's not first and foremost
for God's glory, you and I can mark it down. It'll come to nothing. It'll come to nothing. And thirdly is this. And these things will help. I
think they'd help all of us, if we could just look at it. It's this, the third thing is
this. Is there an opportunity to do something for God's glory?
Now that's a good question. Is there an opportunity? Up to
this time, the Jews didn't have an opportunity to go back to
Jerusalem. They were captives. They couldn't just get together
and leave while Cyrus would have sent his army after them, killed
them and brought them back and probably put them in prison.
This is the first time they had an opportunity to go back to
Jerusalem and build this temple. Look what he said here again
in verse 3. 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." Let him go up. He had
an opportunity to go. Brother Mahan told me and some
more preachers one time, had a wonderful opportunity to spend
some time with him. And he told us something that
has really helped me. It's really stuck with me. He
said, he said, Brother, listen, in all my ministry, he said,
I have never opened the first door. Now that's amazing, ain't
it? When you consider the places
he's preached, the TV and the radio stations that that man's
been on, the prism ministry he has from the tapes and CDs and
so on, it's amazing. And he said, never one time have
I opened the door. He said, I just stepped through
when God opened the door. And that's a good way to know
it's God's will, ain't it? I remember when you and I was
going down to the nursing home, the first nursing home that we
went to, and the door closed there. None of us got mad. We didn't take up a bunch of
petitions to get back here. Never went bagging. What did
we do? We never done anything. And then
the opportunity come back for us to go where we're going now
and worship and preach there. But we can know that God opened
that door because it wasn't us that did it. We just stepped
in when He gave us an opportunity. I like that, don't you? I've
known preachers, bless their hearts, to fill out resumes to
be a pastor somewhere. Can you imagine filling out an
application to be a pastor? I graduated from From so-and-so
seminar, and I've took this course, and I should be your pastor for
this reason and that reason? Can you imagine going pastor
in a congregation after you fill that application and promoting
yourself like some politician running for election? Boy, what
do you do when times get hard to go and just run? But if you
know the Lord has opened the door and made the way and give
you the opportunity, and all you've done is just stepped into
it, Then you can know it's God's will. It's God's will. And the
fourth thing is this. I've got five things. I thought
I had four, but now I've got five. And you can see this here. The
people had a heart to do it. They had a heart to do it. Look
here what he said in verse 3 again. What he said there in verse 3,
where the king said, let him go up to Jerusalem and build
the house of the Lord God of Israel. And here in verse 5,
look at this. Then rose up the chief of the
fathers of Judah and Benjamin and the priests and the Levites
and all them whose spirit God had raised to go