we'd already brought a message
the first hour from Ezra chapter 1 and basically we know by what we
had heard the first hour is that there were 49,697 Jews that went
back to Jerusalem to rebuild the temple at the word of Cyrus
king of Persia at that time we know that the only reason the
only reason that the Lord caused them to go back was that he stirred
their hearts, that he stirred the spirit, and that word means
awaken. And so we know them being in captivity, going back to Jerusalem
now, the whole purpose of the book of Ezra is to tell us about
the children of Israel's building of the temple of the Lord. Now
look with me, if you will, in Ezra chapter three. Let's look
at verse nine. Then stood Jeshua, with his sons
and his brethren, Cadmiel and his sons, the sons of Judah,
together to set forward the workmen in the house of God, the sons
of Hinnadad with their sons and their brethren, the Levites.
When the builders laid the foundation of the temple of the Lord, they
set the priests in their apparel with trumpets and the Levites
and the sons of Asaph with cymbals to praise the Lord after the
ordinance of David, king of Israel. And they sang together by course
in praising and giving thanks unto the Lord, 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 chief of the fathers who
were ancient men that had seen the first house, when the foundation
of this house was laid before their eyes, wept with a loud
voice, and many shouted aloud for joy. so that the people could
not discern the noise of the shout of joy from the noise of
the weeping of the people. For the people shouted with a
loud shout, and the noise was heard afar off. Now when the
adversaries of Judah and Benjamin heard that the children of the
captivity built the temple unto the Lord God of Israel, then
they came to Zerubbabel and to the chief of fathers and said
unto them, let us build with you, for we seek your God as
you do. And we do sacrifice unto him
since the days of Asher, Hadon, king of Asher, which brought
us up hither. But as Arubabal and Jeshua and
the rest of the chief of the fathers of Israel said unto him,
said unto them, you have nothing, you have nothing to do with us
to build a house unto our God. But we ourself together, we build
the house unto the Lord God of Israel, as King Cyrus, the king
of Persia, hath commanded us. Now notice what happens next
here. And the people of the land weakened the hands of the people
of Judah and troubled them in building. And hired counselors
against them to frustrate their purpose. All the days of Cyrus,
king of Persia, even until the reign of Darius, king of Persia.
And in the reign of Ahasuerus, in the beginning of his reign,
wrote they unto him in accusation against the inhabitants of Judah
and Jerusalem. We see that the children of Israel
have made it back to Jerusalem in order to build the temple.
We know that that amount, because they were roughly three million
Jews at that time, as it's been recognized by different scholars
and historians, and a lot of this is historical facts. This
really happened. So we have history in other books
and passages that tell us that this account took place. We don't
need affirmation from the word of God, but it's good to know
the numbers that we're talking about are real numbers. The Lord
told us in chapter two, that there were 49,697 Jews that went
back to Jerusalem. That's 1.65% roughly of three
million. We see that they begin to build
this temple unto the Lord. Now understand the time that
took place. He just said all the time of
Cyrus king and then unto Darius and now Artaxerxes. So that's
three different kings that had taken place. It took a lot of
time to gather the materials. They didn't have a, local hardware
store, if you will, to go to. They didn't have a lumber mill
to go to. They had to make everything before they ever even started
the construction. The same as King David. The Lord
told King David, you will not build me a house, but your son
will. But the Lord said, I'll allow you to gather all the materials.
And it took years to gather the materials to build the temple
of the Lord. And it took years to construct the temple of the
Lord as well. So that's where we are right now in time. That's
where we are in this place is the children of Israel have gathered
the materials and now they've laid the foundation of the temple. Foundation is the most important
part of any building, isn't it? Without a foundation, it wouldn't
stand. You remember the Lord speaking
in parables, he told the foolish man build his house upon the
sand and the rains and winds came. And when the rains and
winds came, it blew the house down, the house failed, the house
faltered. Why? Because the foundation was not
sure. He says, a wise man built his house upon a rock. And when
the winds and waves came, the house stood firm. Why? Because
the foundation was a rock. The foundation is the Lord Jesus
Christ, isn't it? Foundation is our Lord Jesus
Christ. And he is the rock for which we build upon. And the
Lord's the one that built the house. The Lord gets all the
glory in it. But that's who we rest upon, isn't it? He's taken
us out of the mire, the scripture says. He's put our feet upon
a solid rock and established our goings, put a new song in
our heart, even praise him to the Lord. So they rejoiced when
they saw this foundation. This was the base. This was the
beginning of worship for them again. They had been in captivity
70 years. They desired to worship God,
and they come back to build this temple, and the Lord allows them
to build the foundation. But there was a problem, wasn't
there, that took place? The problem was their adversaries.
That's the word that the Lord chose to call these men in chapter
four, verse one. Now, when the adversaries of
Judah and Benjamin heard, When the adversaries heard, what did
they do? They begin to falsely accuse.
They wrote a letter to Artaxerxes, and you can read it on your own
time if you would like to, in this exact chapter, and it goes,
they tell him, they lie on the children of Israel, and they
say, if you let them build this house, if you let them build
this temple, you let them build this city, thou shalt have no
portion on this side of the river. They told the king, they said,
that they're building a rebellious and a bad city. They're building
a rebellious and a bad city. Have they not caused problems
in the past? Have they not done this? Look
at your history books, is what they tell the king. You know what
the king does? Stops work. He says, you can't build the
temple anymore, stop. Don't build anymore. And so that's
what it means whenever it tells us that they weakened the hands
of Judah. They were no longer able to build
this temple. They had to stop according to
the word of the king. When the king says stop, their
adversaries are the one that ran to them and told them what
the king said. They said, we've just talked
to our tax receipts. And he says, you have to stop
working. They thought they won, didn't
they? They thought, well, if I can't have part in you building
the temple, if I can't have some part, something for me to do,
to be part of this, I'm gonna stop it. I'm gonna stop it. Is
that not what they've done to the Lord Jesus Christ? If I can't
have part some kind of glory and salvation away with this
man. Let his blood be upon us and on our children. Is that
not the same exact thing? Can you imagine how frustrating
this would have been to the children of Israel? These faithful few
that came back for the purpose of building this temple have
gathered all the materials and now they can't because of the
word of the King. That would have been very frustrating, wouldn't
it? It would have probably made them angry. The scripture is
not clear on that, but I would have gotten angry because I would
have wanted things to go the way that I thought they were
going to go. That's how we all are, isn't it? But the Lord's ways
are not our ways, brethren. That's what I want to remind
us of this morning. The Lord's the one that made our tax receipts
say stop working. The Lord's the one that said
cease. I'm reminded of King David when he's coming back from fighting,
we see that the relative of Saul is out screaming and hollering,
cursing, the scripture says, cursing David, throwing rocks
at him, physically pelting him with rocks, him and his servants
and those that are around him, hitting him with rocks, throwing
dirt, making a big scene. And David's servant looks at
David and said, David, the man's, The man's name was Shimei. Shimei
was the one throwing the rocks. The servant of David says, David,
you want me to go take Shimei's head off for you? What does David
say? Yeah, that'll be fine. He's getting
on my nerves. No, that's not what he said. That's what I would
have said. Probably what you would have said too, right? What did the Lord
cause David to say by grace? Let him alone. The Lord made
him curse me. The Lord has made him to do this
thing. Oh, that we would have the grace
to say that in all of our trials of life, all the things in life
that doesn't seem to go our way, to look to Christ and say, no,
this is the Lord. He has caused this. That's grace,
isn't it? That's the only explanation because
every time I look at my life and circumstances, I want to
take matters into my own hands. I want to fix things. I want
things to be the way that I want them to be rather than saying,
no, it's the Lord. He is doing this. It is of him.
and bowing. Now the Lord will cause us to
bow as his people in time. He will cause us to bow in circumstances.
Either you're going into a trial, you're in a trial, or you're
coming out of a trial. And that is the life of the believer.
The Lord did not promise a bed of roses. He didn't promise us
sunshine and rainbows, but he did promise us in the rainbow,
promise of eternal life, a promise of a covenant, a promise of a
savior. And that's what we look to is the promise of the Lord
Jesus Christ. Scripture says in Proverbs 16,
and by the way, I have enjoyed reading Proverbs. I know there's
several verses, sometimes there's 30 and 40 verses, and it's a
lot to take in. If the Lord would give you grace as we're going
through Proverbs together, try to find one verse that the Lord
speaks to you on, that stands out to you. Keep saying that
over and over during the day. The Lord's allowed me to do that
this week, and this was one of them. It says, the lot is cast
into the lap, but the whole disposing is of the Lord. The lot is cast
into the lap, but the whole disposing is of the Lord. What does that
mean? Is it by grace through faith? Absolutely. You make a
choice for Jesus? Certainly not. But if you don't
choose him, it's all your fault. That's what that means. Isn't
that interesting? The Lord gets all the glory and salvation.
And the only reason that we believe it is because he's given us the
faith of the Lord Jesus Christ to believe it. Now chapter one through three
is the bringing in bringing the people in together to build the
temple, the gathering of materials, we found the number of the people.
Chapters four through seven is dealing with these adversaries.
They had to communicate with the king. Ezra was the one that
communicated with the king, and that's why this is called the
Book of Ezra. Ezra was the one that stood in the gap, if you
want to say it that way, and said, go look at your historical documents,
king, because Cyrus the king ordered us to build this temple.
Cyrus did. And so he goes and he looks and
he says, well, sure enough, Here's the historical document that
states it's got the King's signet upon it. And the King, our tax
receipts would have honored the previous King's statement. It'd
been like a living wheel, if you want to put it that way.
You know how the wheels work when a man dies, whatever he
has wheeled, and if it's a legal document, it must be carried
out as long as it's within the power of the individual to do
so and request it. He would have wanted to honor
Cyrus's legacy, if you would want to put it that way. And
so he tells Ezra to go back and tell them to start building again. Now, when Ezra gets back, and
there's only 10 chapters, the entire book of Ezra is 10 chapters.
Chapter eight through 10 is Ezra's prayer unto the Lord, prayer
of thanksgiving, but prayer of repentance, prayer of contrition,
prayer of brokenheartedness because of the abomination of Israel. Israel had intermarried in so
much that It was an abomination of the Lord, bringing in false
gods and different things like that, which was the whole reason
they got into Babylonian captivity to begin with. God tells Ezra
the solution. The solution is get rid of the
strange wives and the strange gods. That's a picture of false
religion, isn't it? get rid of the false religion,
whatever. And it's the repentance that the Lord gives his people.
He changes our minds from all the falseness. I was talking
to someone just a little bit ago about how people being raised
in religion, they don't, they hear that we're a church. And
so they associate us to whatever religion that they are part of.
And then they try to, either they disagree with us or they
try to mesh it together or something like that, or they won't have
no part of it because they hate religion. But, We see that this
getting rid of strange wives is a type of false religion,
and that's exactly how Ezra ends. That's the end of the book. They
get rid of all the strange wives, and that's the end of Ezra. Ezra is all about the rebuilding
of the temple, the Lord bringing his people to rebuild his temple
and getting rid of the strange wives, which is false religion,
and restoring worship, restoring God's worship. Now that I've
told us the history, and I've told us the physicality of it,
and I've told us the physical aspects of everything, I hope
the Lord would cause us to examine this through the lens of the
gospel, to allow us to see His face in this passage that we've
just read. The first thing I want us to
notice is the name, Jeshua. It's first mentioned in verse
eight of chapter three, Now, in the second year of their coming
into the house of God at Jerusalem, in the second month, begins Arubabel,
the son of Shealtiel, and Jeshua, the son of Josedach, and the
remnant of their brethren. So, Jeshua is first mentioned
in this verse, and his name, brethren, is the exact same word
as Joshua. For some reason, it was translated
with an E instead of an O. And I would remind us, it's the
exact same word in Hebrew as the Greek word for Jesus, the
Greek word for Jesus. Joshua in the Old Testament and
Jeshua, the word means Jesus in Greek, the exact same word.
We also see that this Jeshua was the son of Josedach. Now, Josedach's name means Jehovah
is righteous, Jehovah is righteous. is righteous. And I'm reminded
of the Lord, how he calls his bride, Jehovah Sitkin you, the
Lord, our righteousness. Jeshua was the one in charge
to set forth the workmen in the house of God. This represents
God, gospel preachers. We don't do anything in and of
ourself. It's the Lord that causes the
gospel to go forth. I stand in complete, a complete
mercy beggar, asking the Lord to bless his message from the
time that I Start studying to the time that I sit down. We're
mercy beggars, brethren, and even in preaching, we're mercy
beggars, and the Lord has to be the one to bless it. And Jeshua,
which is the Lord Jesus Christ, he is the one that set forth,
that sends forth his gospel preachers. I want us to understand something
very important. The Lord will not use a false
preacher for salvation. He will not hear a false gospel
message and be brought to the knowledge of the truth. It has
to come through and by the preaching of the gospel. What did Apostle
Paul say? Even if an angel from heaven comes down and preaches
another gospel than what I've given unto you, do not have any
part to do with him. There is only one gospel And
it is the gospel of free and sovereign grace for the Lord's
elected bride. This is the gospel we believe
in. This is our only hope in salvation. The only way that
the Lord saves man is through the foolishness of preaching
of his gospel. Now look at verse 10 with me.
Of Chapter 3. And when the builders laid the
foundation of the temple of the Lord, they set the priests and
their apparel with trumpets and the Levites, the sons of Asaph,
with cymbals to praise the Lord after the ordinance of King David. So here we have the foundation,
the foundation of the temple. A couple of Wednesdays ago, we
preached on the number 12, didn't we? And we found in Revelation
chapter 21, that the bride of Christ or the new Jerusalem came
down, had 12 foundations, representing the 12 apostles of the Lord.
It represents the Lord's gospel. That's what the number 12 there
represents, the Lord's people and the deliverance by his gospel
of his people. So when they laid this foundation,
they worshiped after the ordinances of David. What does it mean the
ordinance of David? We know that David was a man
after God's own heart, right? That's what the scripture says.
I find that interesting because we know of David's life of being
a murderer. being an adulteress, being a thief. I mean, if you
look at his rap sheet, he was a criminal. I mean, really, the
Lord saved him. He calls him a man after God's
own heart. Says he's perfectly righteous. How can that be? Only
by the substitution of the Lord Jesus Christ, only by his blood
purging David. And this is what it means to
worship after the ordinance of David. He said in Psalm 138,
verse one, I will praise thee with my whole heart. with my whole heart. What are
the Pharisees to try to trick the Lord? I think I've mentioned
this even recently. They said unto him, what's the greatest
commandment? Love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, mind,
soul, and strength. Is that not what he said? We can't love the
Lord with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength. We can't
praise the Lord with our whole heart. But in his eyes, because
of the blood of Christ, we worship him perfectly. Isn't that glorious? He takes our prayer. He takes
our worship, he takes our preaching, and he washes it in his blood
and presents it as perfectly righteous unto the Father, no
longer tainted with sin. He goes on to say, before the
gods will I sing praise to thee. I will worship towards thy holy
temple and praise thy name for thy loving kindness and for thy
truth. For thou has magnified thy word
above all thy name. Because of this foundation, they
worshiped. When they saw the foundation,
they worshiped. I've titled this message Foundation
of Grace. Foundation of Grace. Understand
without the gospel's foundation, without the foundation of grace,
we'd be lost. We would be dead. We would have
no hope. 1 Corinthians 3.11, Paul was speaking
to the Church of Corinthians, of course, and he said, for other
foundation can no man lay than that which is laid, which is
Jesus Christ. Christ is that foundation by
grace. Christ is the foundation for
his people. He's what we hang all of our
hope on. We don't have, there's a saying
that goes, having all your eggs in one basket. Don't put all
your eggs in one basket. A lot of times that's used for
retirement. People will say, well, you should diversify. You
should have this and that. That may be good when it comes
to retirement and funds and all, I don't even know half the stuff
that they diversify with. When it comes to the Lord Jesus
Christ, we're not diversified, are we? We have all of our eggs
in one basket. We are clinging to Jesus Christ
and his finished work as all of our hope and salvation. Because
if He didn't save us, we can't be saved. We know that, don't
we? There's nothing that we can do in and of ourself to please
God. We know that. So we have all of our eggs in
one basket, completely trusting and looking unto the Lord Jesus
Christ. We are all in when it comes to Him. Now notice verse 12. We see something
interesting about this foundation. But many of the priests and Levites
and chief of the fathers who were ancient men," now look at
that up if you want to, these were old men, the old men, they
were the elders at the time, they were the oldest ones that
were there, and had to be because they were in bondage for 70 years.
So you can imagine what it tells us right here, they had seen
the first house. So they had already seen the first temple.
They saw the demise of the first temple. They saw it fall. Now,
whether they were children at that time, or they were men at
that time, scripture's not clear. But for 70 years, they were in
bondage, and now they're back, and they're able to start building
a temple, and they see the second foundation. That's what he tells
us here. Let's just read this entire verse. But many of the
priests and Levites, and chief of the fathers, who were ancient
men that had seen the first house, when the foundation of this house
was laid before their eyes, wept with a loud voice, and many shouted
aloud for joy. Here we see a second foundation,
a second foundation. It's different than the first
one. What was the first foundation? Was it not keeping the law? Was
it not salvation through works? Is that not how the Lord allowed
the children of Israel to worship, is to make sacrifice, keeping
of the Sabbath, to do all the 10 commandments, to do all the
commandments that the Lord gave? The law, this is how the Lord
set forth the first ability to worship, the first temple, the
first place of worship, and he gives them a mercy seat. Now
you and I having the fullness of the scripture, we know that
all of that that they did before represents the Lord Jesus Christ.
The mercy seat represents the Lord Jesus Christ. The sacrifice
represents the Lord Jesus Christ. The temple itself and the curtains
represent the Lord Jesus. Everything about it was the Lord
Jesus Christ. We know that now, they didn't know that then. And
they continually had to offer up sacrifice and service unto
the Lord in order to worship Him. That's the first temple.
That's what the first temple represents here. We know that
it's impossible to keep God's law. And even though they kept
all that they could, even though they did everything that they
could and made sacrifices, they could not enter into the holiest
of holies. But brethren, because of what
the Lord Jesus Christ has done, Because of his blood, because
he entered in once into the holy place, the veil in the temple
has been written twain from top to bottom, and you and I can
enter boldly to the throne of grace. Having obtained mercy,
find grace to help us in the time of need." Hebrews chapter 10, verse 9 confirms
this, that being the first temple, this being the second. Then he
said, he, lo, I come to do thy will, O God. He taketh away the
first, then he might establish the second. What is he talking
about? Christ is the end of the law for righteousness sake. Christ
is the end of the law for righteousness. The Lord Jesus Christ is God's
righteousness. He fulfilled the law. He did
away with the first. He might establish the second.
Do we see that? He, Christ Jesus, is this foundation. He's the one that's laid in Zion,
the city of God. He's the one that gets all the
glory because he redeemed by blood for his people. He alone
saved by grace, and he alone keeps those whom he saved by
grace. He is our chief cornerstone.
Whenever they build a building back then, they didn't do it
like we do now. I know my father was a brick
and block mason, and they would put a trot line out. What that
meant was is it basically is a literal line that's level,
and they would lay according to that level line. Whenever
they used to do buildings at this time, they would lay a cornerstone
first. You have the foundation, you
have the cornerstone. And they would plumb, and they
would level everything to that cornerstone. That's exactly how
they would do it. They would set the cornerstone,
and then they would build around it until the whole building was
done. That's how they built buildings back then. Now, the Lord has
called our cornerstone. I wanna show you that in 1 Peter
2. Turn there with me, if you will. First Peter, chapter two. And
look in verse six. Wherefore also it is contained
in the scripture, behold, I lay in Zion a chief cornerstone,
elect, precious. He that believeth on him shall
not be confounded. Unto you, therefore, which believe
he is precious. Now, understand, who he's writing
to here, to those who are precious. Well, you're not precious because
of what you've done, and I'm not precious because of what
I've done. The Lord Jesus Christ is the one that is precious.
We believe that he is precious. He has been made precious unto
us. But unto them which be disobedient, the stone which the builders
disallowed, the same is made the head of the corner. in a
stone of stumbling, in a rock of offense, even to them that
stumble at the word being disobedient, whereunto also they were appointed."
Why do they stumble? Why is the rock offensive to
them? They were appointed for it to
be offensive to them. That's what he just said. Men
reject this foundation, the Lord Jesus Christ. They reject God's
gospel. They reject the cornerstone. See, if we don't have this foundation
of grace, We have nothing. We have nothing to stand upon.
We don't have the rock. If we, the Lord Jesus Christ,
the cornerstone, if we don't have the foundation of grace,
we don't have the Lord Jesus Christ as our cornerstone. This
is so important to see. Men will always say, by nature,
we will not have this man to rule over us. And they stumble
at the word of God. They stumble at the word of God.
We use a streaming service called Sermon Audio. I put all the messages
that I preach on Sermon Audio. Greg does the same thing. Todd
does the same thing. Sermon Audio is a very religious-based,
they allow everybody. It doesn't matter. They have
certain guidelines that you have to adhere to, but it doesn't
matter whether you're a Baptist, Presbyterian, Pentecostal, Catholic,
it doesn't matter. Everybody can post their messages
on there. And they have a conference every
year. And they get big-named Dr. Reverend Bishop so-and-so. Doctor
sounding brass tinkling cymbal is who they get. And they get
this man, and they get this man, and Billy Graham's grandson,
and they get all these other men, and they get together. And
you know what they call it? They call it the Foundations
Conference. The Foundations Conference. What is their foundation? Well,
I was curious. I wanted to hear a little bit
of what they had to say, even though I knew what they would be saying before
they even did it. Supposedly it's a very large conference. They may kick us off a sermon
audio for me saying this. I don't know, but that's okay. They have
this conference where they get together. Apparently it's a big,
it's huge. And so I started listening into one and everything I got
out of it was works, legalism, and lawmongering. That's what
I got. Then I got this encouragement side from it for the physicality,
the same thing as Joel Osteen when he gets up saying health,
wealth, and prosperity. And that's all that their message
is. See, there's no foundation in that. Do we understand that?
There's no hope in that for me, and there's no hope in that for
you. Our hope is that the Lord came to save sinners. And if
you see yourself and I see myself as the chief of sinners, we know
that it's not by works of righteousness, which we do. We know that we
don't give our heart to Jesus. He doesn't want our heart. We
must have a new heart that pleases the Father. And Christ Jesus
is the one that supplies that. We know that this foundation
of grace is our only hope in salvation. We've been made to
know that. We don't preach that you have something to do. We
preach the second. That would be the first, wouldn't
it? That would be the first temple that was built. That was the
representation of the law. And he hath put away, he hath
fulfilled, he hath kept God's law perfectly. And now you and
I put all of our hope on that foundation of grace in the Lord
Jesus Christ. Men's foundation is, Lord, I
thank thee that I'm thus, that I'm not like this person or that
person. That's what the rich, the publican and the Pharisee
said, wasn't it? He was smoothing upon his, he
was pompous, he was arrogant, but the other man, he was smoothing
upon his breast, wouldn't even look up to the Lord, would he? Wouldn't even lift his head up.
And he said, Lord, have mercy upon me, the sinner. The other
man said, Lord, I thank you that I'm not like this man. I tithe,
I do this, I do that. I thank you that I'm not like
this publican. The Lord said, which one went away home, went
home justified? Which one did the Lord justify?
It was the one that cried out for mercy, wasn't it? Why? Because
the Lord had given him faith to cry out for mercy. And that's
what he does. Republicans hope was in the foundation
of grace. No other foundation will do.
No other foundation can man lay
because God laid this foundation. No other foundation. can man
lay to please the Lord because God is the one that laid the
foundation of grace. God's the one that did it. And
God gets all the glory for it. By his own will begat he us. A let before the foundation of
the world, the scripture says. You're in first Peter, turn back
a few pages, first Peter chapter one. First Peter chapter one tells
us just that. For as much as you know that you were not redeemed
with corruptible things such as silver and gold from your
vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers,
but with the precious blood of Christ as a lamb without blemish
and without spot, who was verily foreordained before the foundation
of the world that was manifest in these last times for you. Christ Jesus, Christ Jesus was
foreordained before the foundation of the world for you. Think about
that. Who by him do believe in God
that raised him up from the dead and gave him glory, that your
faith and your hope might be in God. That your faith and your
hope might be in God. It might be in the foundation
of grace. That's what, it's the same, Peter's
saying the same thing we're describing this morning. It's all about
grace, isn't it? Our faith and our hope that it might be, Christ
Jesus was foreordained before the world ever began. to taste
death for his people. This is the foundation of grace.
This is all our hope. So what David said on his deathbed
literally says is David's last words. This is last will and
Testament. David said, although it be not so with my house, yet
the Lord hath made with me an everlasting covenant ordered
in all things. Ensure this is all my hope. This
is all my salvation. This is the foundation of God. This is the foundation by grace
alone. The Scripture says. The promise of the Lord standeth
sure having this seal, the Lord knoweth whom that are his. The
Lord knows those that are his. Why? Because he died for them.
He purchased them by his own blood. He owns them. This is
our foundation by grace. This is our election by grace.
This is our only hope. Go back to our text in Ezra chapter
three. As soon as men hear the gospel. Soon as men hear the gospel.
They will either. There's three things that can
happen. Really, just three, I believe. A man can get mad at it, angry,
so that's not fair. A man can believe it, and if
he does, it's by grace through faith, of course. And the third
one is a man can be indifferent to it or not hear anything. Like,
yeah, that's the same thing we believe. I've been around more
people lately that have that mentality. Yeah, I agree with
everything you say. They didn't hear a thing I said.
You know what I mean? If they did, they would leave the church that they're
at. The Lord would bring them out of that. But we see that there's always
those that do become angry. They do become angry at God.
Man becomes angry at God because he wants to have a part. Look
at chapter four, verse one. Now, when the adversaries of
Judah and Benjamin heard that the children of captivity builded
the temple unto the Lord God of Israel, then they came to
Zerubbabel. Now, Zerubbabel was over the
whole situation here. And it means, his name means
to be born in Babylon or be born in captivity. And to the chief
of the fathers and said unto them, let us build with you for
we seek your God as you do. And we do sacrifice unto him
since the days of Ezra Hayden, king of Asher, which brought
us up hither. Now we have here brethren, our
gospel, the gospel of grace alone, the foundation that we're building
upon. And now we have our adversary that we're seeing trying to bring
contention, trying to bring strife, trying to bring problems. Well,
what is our adversary? Certainly the devil, he's our
adversary. He's called the accuser of the
brethren. He hates God, he hates everything about God. What else
is our adversary? Well, it's the world, isn't it?
What did the scripture say? The world hates you because it
hates me. Christ said that. The world hates
you, it hated me first. Lord, the world hates you because
it hates me. So that's an adversary, isn't it? Where our self is the
worst adversary we have, isn't it? Truly, we are our own worst
enemy. And we see that. Whenever you
put all these together. You only conclusion you can come
to is if the Lord is going to save us, he'll have to do all
the saving because the adversaries we face, we can't conquer the
flesh. Paul said the things which I would do I do not, but that
which I would not do. That's what I that's what I find
myself doing. So we can't conquer the flesh. We certainly can't
conquer Satan. I heard a man mention recently
that we're at some kind of revival or whatever. He's a friend. I'll call him a friend. I pray
the Lord would call him. If the Lord saved him, the Lord's
going to call him. So I pray the Lord would call him. But
that being said, he had mentioned how he could swing over hell
on a noodle and say boo to the devil because he's so fired up
for Jesus. That's what he said. He wanted to find a common ground
with me, and I can only tell him of the ground on whereby
the Lord hath called us, and that is the foundation of grace.
And me and him couldn't really find a common ground. I was unwilling
to compromise. I tried to explain to him what
he just said was not very intelligent, number one, because we're no
match for the devil. We're no match for Satan. Don't ever think
for a moment that you're a match. Now, I'm not giving him any credit.
The devil's God's devil. Satan is the Lord's devil, and
the only thing that he can do is what the Lord allows him to
do. But that being said, with this individual, he wanted to
find common ground with me. And that's exactly what we see
here in these two verses. You have either the religious
wanting to compromise, the religious are wanting you to compromise,
or we have free will works religion trying to add to what Christ
compromised. See, these men didn't know how to worship God. They
talk about offering sacrifice unto him, since the days of Aserhadon,
king of Asher. Well, that's Assyria. This is
the Assyrian king at that time. And what they did, this is the
same thing whenever the Lord spoke to the woman at the well,
the same thing that they believed. When he spoke to the woman at
the well, he said, you worship you know not what. They were taking God
and they were offering sacrifices to God, to Jehovah in the form
of a cat. and a dog and a donkey and the
sun and the moon. And that's what men do by nature.
And what does the men of Israel say to this? Well, sure, yeah,
you can have part. You can have a part of this.
No, certainly not. Jeshua, the Lord is our, this
Zerubbabel here, and Jeshua, as we see, you're gonna respond
to him in verse three. And he's gonna tell him, you
have nothing to do with this building. You have nothing to
do with this salvation. You have no part in it whatsoever.
You get no glory for it in any way, shape or form. And that's
what we declare unto men, isn't it? We declare that we have no
glory in it whatsoever. And what was their response to
this? What was their response? Well, we're gonna mess it up
then. We're gonna try to thwart it. We're going to put it down.
We're going to prevent you from building it. Then if that's the
case, aren't you thankful that the devil can't do anything against
the Lord to thwart his purpose? Aren't you glad you can't do
anything to thwart the Lord's purpose? Everything that he's
purpose is going to come to pass, and it's going to come to pass
because of the foundation of grace that he hath ordained. I recently. spoke to a man and
I was talking to him about salvation being by God's grace alone, by
God's will, whom he did foreknow. He also did predestinate to be
conformed to the image of his son. I took him to Romans chapter
eight and just about showed him the entire chapter. And I even
mentioned to him, he said, well, what about evil? What about bad
things? And you can't convince anybody
of anything, brethren. That would be my encouragement
to you. We just declare the gospel. We don't debate. We're not trying
to come up with a middle of the ground and see who's right and
who's wrong. We just declare the gospel of God's free and
sovereign grace, and he does the work according to his will.
But I remembered, because I was in Proverbs 16, I remembered
this verse. I told you earlier, the one,
king's heart is in the Lord's hand. I constantly thought of
that one that day. Well, then the same chapter 16, it says, the
Lord has made all things for himself, yea, even the wicked
for the day of evil. That's what I told that man.
I was able to tell him that. You know what his response to
me was? You're just saying what it says. You're just saying what
it says. He said you can't do that. I
said I don't understand. He said you're just declaring
exactly what it says and you're taking it out of context and
I'm like. Sir, I've just read you what God said. That's all
I'm doing and he says no no when he says this or he says and then
that was pretty much the end of the conversation. He said
you're just saying what it says. You can't do that. Brethren,
that's what we declare what it says. What does it say? The Lord
Jesus Christ successfully put away the sin of his people. Now
we have a foundation of grace that we stand upon. We're no
longer looking to the first temple, we're looking to the second,
the foundation of grace. That's why these men worship.
That's why they rejoice when they saw the second one. We can
worship God because of grace. That's what this represents here.
The Lord says you have nothing to do with it. You have nothing
to do with us to build a house unto our God. We, ourself, We
ourself together build it. There's three here that's speaking.
We see Jeshua representation of the Lord Jesus Christ. We
have the three. We have the Godhead, the Trinity.
We have the Father that elected. They're saying you can't have
any part of this. The Lord's gonna get all the glory. The Father
elected, and the Son redeemed, and the Spirit calls and quickens.
We have confirmation of this, but the Lord's saying except
the Lord built the house, they labor in vain that build it.
Lord says you can't have any part in this salvation, not of
works, not of you doing something to attain to it. He says it's
bestowed, it's not merited. It's not earned, it's given.
It's paid for by the precious blood of Christ. This is what
the Lord is telling us in this. We have the men building the
temple, the elders crying because they saw the second foundation
here. We see the discernment I read in verse 13. Look at verse
13 again in closing. Chapter Chapter 3. I know we
were in four, but go to Chapter 3 verse 13. These men are shouting
for joy, shouting 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. Use the word discernment
there, didn't he? This discernment is not something
we attain to, but it's something given. The only way we can discern
the gospel is if the Lord gives us his spirit and power. That's
what we pray for every time we come together in order to worship.
Lord, send your spirit. Lord, give us discernment. Give
us Christ. Shut us up to him. We're not
wise. Give us Christ, our wisdom. Lord, he is our righteousness.
He is our sanctification, our redemption. Give us Christ. Give
us this foundation of grace. Other men will hear it. They
won't be able to discern it. They won't be able to discern
the shouts from joy. Isn't it true? The scripture
says that in the end times, they'll call evil good and good evil.
Is that not where we are? Men are calling evil good. They're
calling good evil. This foundation of the Lord,
foundation of God standeth sure. The Lord knoweth them that are
his. He knoweth them that are his.
He bought them. He's all our hope. All our hope
is this salvation. By his amazing grace, thank God
for the foundation of grace. Lord, we pray that you would
cause us to rest on nothing else but your foundation, Jesus Christ. In his name we pray, amen.