But because the children of Israel
turned from God, worshiped and served other gods, the Lord brought
them down at last into Babylon as he had sworn he would do.
And there they learned the ways of the land and learned to worship
the gods of the land. For 70 years they were left in
bondage. For 70 years. But the Lord had promised that
he would bring his people out of bondage at the end of 70 years. It looked as though all hope
was gone. When the prophet said, God's
going to deliver his people, they laughed at him. They declared
God would fulfill his word and mocked them, threw them in pits,
imprisoned them, found prophets who would speak other things
to them, and made things comfortable for them in Babylon. But at the
end of 70 years, God raised up a man by the name of Zerubbabel. This man, Zerubbabel, It stands
before us in scripture as an imminent type of the Lord Jesus
Christ, our great King. You can imagine for the faithful,
for the remnant in Israel, those of Judah who yet believed God,
what a great encouraging sign it was when you understand who
Zerubbabel was. He was a direct descendant of
David, the king. He was a representative of that
one whom God promised he would cause to sit on the throne of
David and his kingdom forever. So when God raised up Zerubbabel
and Osiris to deliver Israel, how they must have rejoiced at
the prospect. He raised up a man by the name
of Ezra, who was a direct descendant of Aaron, a priest who devoted
himself to the study of God's word. And by these men he brought
Judah back from Babylon into Jerusalem to build again the
house of God, to restore the desolations of God's worship,
and to bring God's people back again into the enjoyment that
is theirs as the sons and daughters of God Almighty. That's what
the book of Ezra is all about. The books of Ezra, Nehemiah and
Esther cover the history of Israel immediately following that period
of time after they were recovered from Babylonian captivity. There
was only a remnant that returned to a remnant of whom we are told
whose spirit the Lord had raised, a remnant whose hearts were stirred
up by God to go back to Jerusalem. Though there were probably three
million Jews in Babylon at the time, only 50,000 came back with
Zerubbabel. They had gone down into Babylon
as shepherds, their business was tending sheep. But while
they were in Babylon, They learned the ways of Babylon, and they
became shrewd, prosperous, successful businessmen. They began to keep
shops. They were merchants, and they
were very comfortable in Babylon. They were slaves. They were in
bondage to another nation, in bondage to another king, but
they were comfortable. They were living well, living
better than they had ever lived. And they were not about to forsake
Babylon and Babylon's gods in order to go back to Jerusalem,
where the temple had been destroyed, and there go through the whole
process again of building that temple. They would call themselves
God's people, and they would call themselves worshiping God,
but they would stay in Babylon, where the world had grasped their
heart. and they could not be freed from
it. They would not leave it. Some
say that the Jews changed while they were in Babylon. That's
not the case at all. You see, divine chastisement,
providential trials and judgments never change anyone, never make
a change. They only reveal what we are. They only reveal what we are.
Trials make the promise sweet. Trials give new life to prayer. Trials bring me to his feet,
lay me low and keep me there. Or else, trials will cause me
to abandon my God altogether. Trials don't change a thing.
They just reveal what we are. And by the trials which our God
brings upon us, He breaks from us that which would destroy us,
that by which we would destroy ourselves, if he would let us.
There was an elect remnant in Babylon, an elect remnant whom
the Lord had reserved, whose spirit he revived, whose seventy
years of trial in Babylon caused them all the more earnestly to
pine again for Jerusalem. the altar of God, the house of
God, and the worship of God. These are the ones who would
be spoken of in the psalm and say, How can we sing the songs
of the Lord, or the songs of Zion, in a strange land? They could not find a place to
worship God, and their souls were constantly pressed hard
because of their affliction. They longed to return again to
Jerusalem. They longed for liberty because
they had known it, they had tasted it, and now the time came and
God delivered them. The message of this entire book
is found in chapter 9, verse 9. Look at it with me. Ezra 9,
verse 9. Right in the middle of the verse,
Ezra in his prayer says, Our God hath not forsaken us. Why is it we're here? Why did
we come out of Babylon? And why have we now come to this
place where God has established his name? Why have we come here
now and worship our God and our Savior? Only for this reason. Our God hath not forsaken us. This book is all about God's
great grace in keeping, reviving and restoring his people in spite
of themselves. Actually, the book of Ezra speaks
of two returns from Babylon. The first is recorded in chapters
1 through 5. Zerubbabel, this man who was
a direct descendant of David the King, led about 50,000 back
to After the building again of the
altar of God and laying the foundation of the temple, there was another
long period of languishing. Then in chapter 6, Ezra picks
up the story again. There is another group led from
Babylon, a much smaller group, but another group that is led
back to Jerusalem. That interval between the first
return and the second return is the period of time that is
covered by the book of Esther. we have Ezra's prayer. It's one
of the most remarkable, instructive prayers in all of scripture.
It is a prayer of repentance, a prayer of repentance offered
to God Almighty by Ezra the priest in the stead of his people. Ezra here speaks for the nation
and speaks for the people of Israel. Then that which caused
Ezra to fall on his face before God is recorded in the first
part of chapter 9, and then his prayer beginning in verse 5.
Let's read this 9th chapter together, and then I'll give you that which
is clearly revealed in this book. Ezra 9, verse 1. Now, when these
things were done, the altar was built, the temple was built.
The princes came to me, saying, The people of Israel and the
priest and the Levites have not separated themselves from the
people of the lands, doing according to their abominations, even of
the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Jebusites,
the Amorites, the Ammonites and the Moabites, the Egyptians and
the Amorites. for they have taken of their
daughters for themselves, and for their sons, so that the holy
seed have mingled themselves with the people of those lands.
Yea, the hand of the princes and rulers hath been chief in
this trespass." You can just almost picture They've gone through
a time of great languishing, great difficulty. God's brought
them now out of Babylon. God's restored his worship, reestablished
his house, reestablished his altar. And Ezra gets this report,
and I can just picture him, he just rips his garments and falls
on his face. He says, Oh, my God, it started
all over again. it started all over again. That
was the trouble to begin with. Verse 3, And when I heard this
thing, I rent my garment and my mantle, and plucked off the
hair of my head and of my beard, and sat down astonished. Then
were assembled unto me every one that trembled at the words
of the God of Israel. Because of the transgression
of those that had been carried away. And I sat astonished until
the evening sacrifice.' Now listen to his prayer, verse 5. And at the evening sacrifice
I rose up from my heaviness, and having rent my garment and
my mantle, I fell upon my knees, and spread out my hands unto
the Lord my God, and said, O my God, I am ashamed and blushed
to lift up my face to thee, my God. For our iniquities are increased
over our head, our trespasses grown up to the heavens. Since
the days of our fathers have we been in a great trespass unto
this day.' He says, Lord, you are familiar with us. We are
sinners now, and that's what we've always been. Nothing has
changed. And for our iniquities, we have,
our kings and our priests, been delivered to the hands of the
kings of the lands, to the sword, to captivity, and to spoil and
to confusion of face, as it is this day. The cause of our bondage,
the cause of our suffering, the cause of our anguish, the cause
of our languishing, is altogether in us. And now, for a little space,
grace hath been shewed from the Lord our God, to leave us a remnant
to escape, and to give us a nail in his holy place. that our God
may lighten our eyes and give us a little reviving in our bondage. For we were bondmen, yet our
God hath not forsaken us in our bondage, but hath extended mercy
unto us in the sight of the kings of Persia, to give us a reviving,
to set up the house of our God, and to repair the desolations
thereof, and to give us a wall in Judah and in Jerusalem. And
now, O our What shall we say after this? For we have forsaken
thy commandments, which thou hast commended by thy servants
the prophets, saying, The land into which thou shalt go to possess
it is an unclean land with the filthiness of the people of the
lands.' He is talking about the abominations of their idolatry,
with their abominations with which they have filled it from
one end to another with their uncleanness. Now therefore, give
not your daughters unto their sons, neither take their daughters
unto your sons, nor seek their peace or their wealth forever. Don't seek anything they have. Don't set your heart on any of
that which pleases them and delights them and appears to make them
happy, and leave it for an inheritance to your children forever." And after all that has come upon
us for our evil deeds, and for our trespasses, seeing thou hast
punished us less than our iniquities deserve, and hast given us such deliverance
as this, should we again break thy commandments, and join in
affinity with the people of these abominations? Wouldst not thou
be angry with us, till thou hast consumed us, so that there should
be no remnant, nor escaping? O Lord God of Israel, thou art
righteous, for we remain yet escaped, as it is this day. Behold, we are before thee in
our trespasses, for we cannot stand before thee because of
this.' we find back in chapter 1. It's a lesson about the character
of our God. He is described in verse 3 by
Cyrus as the Lord God of Israel, he is God. Now, remember this
man Cyrus was a pagan. This man Cyrus was a man who
didn't know God's name. This man Cyrus was a Gentile. This man Cyrus had never been
instructed in the things of God until God revealed himself to
him. And when the Lord God revealed
himself to him, Cyrus turns his back against all the gods of
his fathers and the gods of his nation and the gods he had worshipped. He says, the God of Israel, he
is the God. There is none other. Read it
with me, 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. Isn't that wonderful? Jeremiah
said, 70 years, God's going to send his apostles, God's going
to send the deliverer. And now, 70 years later, the
Lord stirred up the spirit of Cyrus, king of Persia, that he
had made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom, and put it also
in writing, Thus saith Cyrus, king of Persia, The Lord God
of heaven hath given me all the kingdoms of the earth, and he
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 in Judah, and build the house
of the Lord God of Israel. He is the God which is in Jerusalem.'
Now here is a display, a clear display, an indisputable display
of the inspiration of this book you have in your hands. Almost 200 years before Cyrus
was born, almost 200 years before he was born, the prophet Isaiah
called him by name and said he's going to come deliver Israel.
Before anybody had ever heard tell of them going down into
Babylonian captivity, before there was any suggestion this
was going to happen, God said, Cyrus is going to come, and he's
going to bring my people out of Babylon. Jeremiah said 70
years before it came to pass, Cyrus is going to come at the
end of 70 years and bring Israel out. Now, there are lots of folks
who pretend to be prophets, lots of folks who pretend to be seers,
visionaries, lots of folks called by whatever you want to just
witchcraft and idolatry. But they point to things, oh,
look what they suggested, they hinted at, that maybe they meant.
Not so with God's word. Now, Isaiah didn't say, Now,
there's going to be somebody, and maybe he'll look sort of
like this, and maybe he'll come from over here, maybe he'll come
from over there, but he's going to come down. No, he said, Silas
is coming, he's coming in this way, he's going to bring Israel
out this way, and they're going back to Jerusalem. And that's
exactly what happened. This book is written by the inspiration
of God Almighty. There's no other way to explain
it. Here is also a display of God's great sovereignty. Here
is a pagan king, a fellow kind of like Saddam Hussein, a fellow kind
of like one of those kings over in one of the Arab countries
over there, brutal, idolatrous, self-centered, self-serving. But the king's heart is in the
hand of the Lord. and like rivers of water, he
turneth it whithersoever he will. In this case, he revealed himself
to the King and turned him. And here is a display of God's
faithfulness. Oh, he abideth faithful. Everything I know about my God
and everything I know about me put together reproves me horribly. But God is faithful. He promised
to bring Judah out of Babylon after 70 years, though he told
them plainly, I'm going to send you down there. Their bondage
as well as their deliverance was because of God's faithfulness.
He sent them down to Babylon not to destroy them, but rather
to help them, to refine them, to purify to break them off from
the serving of idols, and to break them off from the world
around them. When God in chastisement sends
pain to us, adversity and deflection, the cause is in us. The sooner we recognize it, the
better. God never never visits us with
the rod of his chastisement without reason. He visits us in mercy
because he loves us. He chastens us painfully because
of his goodness to us. And he sustains us in the midst
of the trial because of his faithfulness to a people who have proven themselves
repeatedly unfaithful to him. But the Lord didn't destroy Israel
down in Babylon. Rather, he restored them from
Babylon and did more than that. Now, hold on to your seat, because
if you hear this, you're going to kind of float away. He used all that they experienced
in Babylon to enrich them in their souls, and to build again
his kingdom. In chapter 6, verse 4, we find
that ultimately all the expenses that were needed
for the building again of God's house in Jerusalem came from
the King's treasury down in Babylon. Our desert sees the king sent
words, and not only do they have permission to go back, I've commended
it, and not only have I commended it, I've commended you to leave
them alone, and not only have I said you leave them alone,
but everything they need, I'll pay for." God took that which
had been their most bitter experience and used it for their greatest
delights. Now, learn this, too. doesn't look like I'd have to
talk about this any, but it's fact. They would never have returned
by any enticement, by any inducement, because of any pain, except the
Lord God turned down. The Lord raised up their heart
to return to Jerusalem. I was out in California a week
or so ago, and one of the fellas, it's amazing to me, things folks
hear that I've never said, you know. This fella sitting across
the table in front of a bunch of folks sitting there. He said,
he said, I heard you say one time on one of your tapes you
have a real problem with depression. I said, what? Me? No, not me. I might have it,
but I'd lie about it. I wouldn't tell anybody. I wouldn't
tell anybody. There's too much Southern pride
in me. I wouldn't tell anybody I had
a problem with it. No, not me. But I'll tell you
what I've observed. I've observed that people who
have a real problem with it engage in everything possible,
it seems, with willing hands. to increase the depression, and
ignore and deliberately refuse to accept or do anything that
will help it. Now, I don't know much about
that. But I know a good bit about spiritual
decline, declension and vanquishing. And when we sleep comfortably
in our bed, and we don't want to be bothered,
when we have turned from our God and turned from the worship
of our God, and we often do, we may not turn from the outward acts and services of worship. But often we turn from him and
set our hearts on other things. And you know what? It doesn't
matter how sharply we're reproved, it doesn't matter how painfully
we suffer It doesn't matter what the consequences are, we will
not return to him. Go ask David. We won't do it. We won't do it.
Once we started that downward spiral in our souls, we will
never turn back to God. except he turn us to him. No wonder the prophet cried,
Turn us, O God, and we shall be turned. Draw us, and we will
run after thee. These people returned because
they were people. who were God's elect remnant
whom he would not allow to perish in Babylon, a people called a
remnant chosen by God, whose spirit the Lord raised. When Zerubbabel brought Israel
back to Jerusalem, his first act was to build again God's
altar. The book opens with Israel in
a time of reviving and refreshing. God has brought them back to
Jerusalem, and in that period of languishing, he declines. And then Ezra rises
again to the occasion, and God revives his people again. How
much that's like us! Our lives are a constant struggle
with the flesh. a constant struggle with unbelief,
a constant struggle with the love of this world, a constant
struggle with ourselves, a constant struggle that we would certainly
lose if God didn't raise us up. But this is the first thing that
happens in those times when God visits his people. When your heart has been so heavy
with sin and unbelief in the dark cloud in your soul for so
long, when you utter words and can't pray, when you read God's
book and can't hear God speak. And then he visits you by his
grace and turns you again to him. The very first thing you
do, the very first thing, he takes you back again to the place
of sacrifice. causes you to see again, to see
afresh, to see anew the sacrifice of his darling Son for your redemption,
and by that causes renewed consecration in your soul to him, acknowledging,
I'm not home, I've been bought with a price, I belong to my
God. The second thing they did was
to lay the foundation of the temple. Now I want you to turn
to chapter 3 and see this. Look in verse 11. They laid the
foundation of the temple, and something strange happened. This
thing has been torn up for 70 years, and they've now laid the
foundation of it. And in verse 11, they sang together
by chorus, in praising and giving thanks to God. They sang in four-part
harmony, sang together by chorus, everybody rejoicing and singing
God's praise, because he is good. for his mercy endureth 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 chiefs of their 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." I read that again this morning.
I thought, what a picture that is, of the bitter sweetness of true
repentance in our souls. When the Lord When the Lord breathes
on us by his grace, when the Lord makes his face to shine
upon us, our hearts weep because of our sin, and rejoice because
of his goodness. Weep because of our transgressions,
and rejoice because of his forgiveness. Weep because we have forsaken
him, and rejoice in seeing his place, because he will not forsake
us. And then a third thing happens.
When you get to chapter 4, you see some of their half-breed
brethren come in. These fellows described in chapter
4 are really the Samaritans. These folks who came up and they
said to this rubber boy, said, We're your brethren, and we worship
God like you do, and we see that the Lord is with you, and you're
building his house. Let us join with you, and we'll help you.
We'll get this thing done. And Zerubbabel looked at him and
said, No, sir. No, sir. No, sir. You can't have any part
in this. Now, that may look like an awfully
churlish thing for a fellow to do. Oh, that mean old Zerubbabel. He wouldn't accept our help.
He couldn't accept their help, because they did not know or
worship his God. They merely pretended to. They
did not have any concern for the glory of God, they merely
pretended to. They did not have any concern
for the things of God, they merely pretended to. These were Samaritans
who had long since forsaken the worship of God, holding to the
word but denying everything in the word. And Zerubbabel refused
to let them help. When he did, you find out just
what they were made of? When he said, No, God didn't
send you to do this, he sent me to do this. He didn't tell
you to do this, he told me to do this. They turned and used
every cunning, conniving, lying, deceitful trick in the book to
try to stop them from their work. turned on them, I mean turned
on them, turned on them fiercely, sent letters to the king, and
said, Don't you know about those people? Don't you know they're
going down there to raise up a rebellion against you? And
that caused a temporary pause in the work. These men are like our flesh. You see everything in us by nature. resist every wooing and call
and movement of God's grace in our hearts. Everything in us
by nature will do everything possible by any means to find
some way not to comply with what we know is the will of our God.
Judah couldn't allow these Samaritans to have any part in the work,
because these Samaritans would have been like leaning to the
arm of the flesh. The rebel boy would have been
saying, by giving his nod to this, he would have been saying,
Well, we sure appreciate you coming along, don't know how
we could have done this without you, and we sure need what you've
got to offer. And thus denying the very God
whom he worshiped and served. You see, we cannot, we cannot,
we cannot do the work of God or the will of God by the strength
of the flesh, neither our own nor somebody else's. How that
would change things in this religious world if it was hers! The whole of the religious
world around us is driven and motivated by seeking the strength
and arm of the flesh. We can't do it without them! If we're God's, we can. We can't
do it without God's people, we can do it without everybody else.
Whatever it is God has us to do. Now notice something here
about God's method of grace. This is another lesson, and it
needs to be learned. God always accomplishes his purpose
of grace. There's no question about that.
Somebody says, well, you folks believe in predestination, you
believe Whatever God has purposed, he's going to do no matter what.
Oh, no, we don't. We believe God's going to accomplish
his purpose exactly the way he said he would accomplish it.
And use exactly the means he has declared he will use to accomplish
it. Let's see if that's not going
out in his book. Cyrus issued a decree. He issued a decree
back in the first chapter, we saw it. And he said, These people
go back to Jerusalem and build again the house of God. Well,
why on earth did he do that? Well, he was just sitting in
his throne room one day on his throne, kind of leaning back,
and I don't know whether he was smoking or chewing, but it probably
had been something. And he said, Well, you know, the Jews have
been down here long enough, let's send them back to Jerusalem. Why did he come up with that? Because God said, Cyrus, send
my people back to Jerusalem. Cyrus sent them back. He did
it. And God used him to do it. But he sent them back because
God decreed it. Those who returned, returned
not because suddenly they decided they'd been in Babylon long enough
and time had come to go back and start worshiping God like
they used to. They returned because God put it in their hearts to
return. But they returned. Ezra succeeded
because the good hand of the Lord was upon him, we're told
in chapter 7. But he succeeded. He put his
work to the hand, and man, look at Look at this place being built. Oh, look what Ezra has done!
The good hand of God was with Ezra. Artaxerxes supported the
work of building again the house of God because the Lord put it
in his heart to do so, we're told in chapter 7. But he supported
the work and did it willingly. God favored the nation and granted
repentance to his people. granted a time of reviving and
refreshing in response to Ezra's prayer in chapters 9 and 10. Ezra said, Lord, you've been
so good, you've been so faithful, you've been so merciful, you've
brought us back to this place where we've sinned. Now, Lord,
will you visit us? Will you yet have mercy upon
us? And the Lord God turned the entire
band of Judah to him in repentance. God raised up two prophets, Haggai
and Zechariah in chapter 5. And these two prophets directed
the people of God in the work that God would have them to do,
when God Almighty intends to visit a people. When God speaks
to men and women, when God gives direction to the lives of his
people, he does so through the voice of a man sent by God to
speak for God to their hearts his word. You say, well, that
sure lifts up a man. No. This man talking to you And this is not a pretense of
humility. This man talking to you is the
least worthy man in this building to stand here and talk to you
in God's name. But if God sent me, I've got
a word for you. And God sent his word, Rex, because of his
grace to you. Faith comes by hearing, and hearing
by the word of God. God gave his church pastors,
teachers, for the perfecting of the saints, to instruct them,
to build them up in the most holy faith. And then deliverance
came. Isn't this amazing? Boy, it just couldn't happen.
No way it could happen. Nah! It can't happen! Israel is sure to wither to nothing
down in Babylon. Oh no, they're not. God said
70 years. And 70 years later they came
out. Now watch this. God's grace is sufficient. God's grace is sufficient to
supply all our need. Behold what needy creatures we
are. His grace is sufficient to keep
us in all our way, to keep us when we're walking
with Moses in the wilderness following the pillar of cloud
and the pillar of fire, to keep us when we're walking with Joshua
through the Jordan, to keep us when we tread down the land of
Canaan, to keep us when we walk in the mountain and take it with
Caleb, and to keep us when we plunge ourselves into the depths
of degradation. His grace is sufficient. He will
keep his own. And his grace is sufficient to
enable us, his servants, always to do all together what he would
have us to do in the generation which we live. How on this earth
can I do what God had me to do? My grace is sufficient for thee.
How can I live with this? My grace is sufficient for thee.
How can I finish my course? My grace is sufficient for thee.
How can I run this race with these weak knees and these sagging
hands? My grace is sufficient for thee. His grace, and his grace alone,
is that which makes the difference. Look at chapter 9 again, verse
8. For a little space, grace hath
been showed from the Lord our God, to leave us a remnant. He still has his remnant, a remnant
whom he will deliver from a captivity worse than Babylon. And to give
us a nail, a secure place in his holy place. He's given us
his word, his covenant, his oath, his promise. that our God may
lighten our eyes and give us a little reviving in our bondage." While we live in this world,
Rex read about our liberty in Christ. I can't describe how great the
liberty is. Who can describe what it is to
be set free to someone who's never been in bondage. But our liberty, while we live
in this body of flesh, oh, what bondage it still is. But in this
day, while we live with these struggles, the Lord God continually
grants us a little revival here and there. And you know what? I've been at this thing a little
while. I've been at this thing of trying
to believe God and trying to preach the gospel for a little
while. And I am more and more convinced
that it is altogether best for us that the reviving is just
for a little season. It's needful for us constantly
to be made aware that we desperately need his grace. Yet our God hath
not forsaken us in our bondage, but has extended, watch this,
has extended his mercy unto us. Special mercy just for us. And then Ezra calls in chapter
10 for separation from everything that would turn our hearts from
our God. And God's people said this is
not the work of one day or two, but we lift our hands to God
and we'll do it where he is.