Let us open our Bibles once again
to the book of Ezra, tonight, chapter 7. Ezra, chapter 7, and
I'll read the first 10 verses. Now, after these things, in the
reign of Artaxerxes, king of Persia, Ezra, the son of Saraiah,
the son of Azariah, the son of Hilkiah, the son of Shalem, the
son of Zadok, the son of Ahitab, the son of Amariah, the son of
Azariah, the son of Miriath, the son of Zarahiah, the son
of Uzzi, the son of the son of Abishua, the son of Phinehas,
the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron, the chief priest. This
Ezra went up from Babylon, and he was a ready scribe in the
law of Moses, which the Lord God of Israel had given. And
the king granted him all his requests according to the hand
of the Lord his God upon him. And there went up some of the
children of Israel, and of the priests, and the Levites, and
the singers, and the porters, and the nymphs unto Jerusalem
in the seventh year of Artaxerxes the king. And he came to Jerusalem
in the fifth month, which was in the seventh year of the king.
For upon the first day of the first month began he to go up
from Babylon, and on the first day of the fifth month came he
to Jerusalem according to the good hand of his God upon him.
For Ezra had prepared his heart to seek the law of the Lord,
and to do it, and to teach in Israel statutes and judgments.
Let me just remind us that we've been studying from the book of
Ezra, which is an account of the Jews when they return from
70 years captivity in Babylon, when they returned to Jerusalem
with the King of Persia's decree to build the temple, the temple
of the Lord. And the temple of the Lord, I
would remind us, that they built is the temple that the Lord Jesus
Christ was carried to as a baby. He is the desire of all nations
that Haggai spoke of who would come to the temple. And he is
the one who Malachi said would suddenly come to his temple. It's this temple that they had
built. Now tonight, for the first time,
for the first time in the book of Ezra, in chapter seven here
in verse six, we see Ezra's name. We've not seen his name before.
We saw his name, of course, at the beginning of the book, the
book of Ezra. But as far as the text itself,
the book itself, this is the first time that we see his name. And this chapter, chapter seven,
and the next tell us about a trip, a trip that Ezra had from Babylon
to Jerusalem. And some have believed that this
was his first coming to Jerusalem, but that cannot be so. That cannot
be so because in Nehemiah chapter 12 in verse 1, we are told that
Ezra was also among those who came with Zerubbabel and Joshua,
or Joshua, the high priest, which we've seen all the way to this
point in the book of Ezra. Now, this is what I understand,
and this is a way that we're going to look at this. The words,
if you notice, we read at the very beginning of this chapter.
Now, after these things, after these things, what things? The
things that we looked at last week, remember? The temple was
finished, the temple was dedicated, the Passover and the Feast of
Unleavened Bread was kept. After these things, evidently,
Ezra was called back to Babylon. We know that Nehemiah, who was
a contemporary of Ezra, when he was allowed to come to build
the walls, not the temple, but the walls of Jerusalem, the king
asked him how long it would take how long he would be away and
he had to return to the king of Persia's palace. And so I
think the same thing happened with Ezra. He was called back
to give an account of the building of the temple. Now tonight I
have three things in these first 10 verses. First, And we're going
to look at these two chapters, chapter seven and eight. And I'm just going to bring out
a few things that, that impressed me as I read through, because
a lot of the genealogy, uh, it's hard to get much spiritual profit
from reading a genealogy, isn't it? But some things that impressed
me in these 10 verses first, and this does concern the genealogy
that we read through. in these first verses, Ezra's
genealogy. There are three men, there are
several men who are named, but there are three men in particular
in this list that we should note. The first one is found in verse
one, Ezra, the son of Zariah. Now, most likely, and this is
not a complete list, there is a complete list of the high priest
in the book of Chronicles, 2 Chronicles. This is not a complete list.
But Zariah was probably Ezra's grandfather. And he's listed
because, I believe, he's listed because he was the high priest
that Nebuchadnezzar killed. If you look to Jeremiah with
me, just a moment. Jeremiah, the last chapter in
the book of Jeremiah. Chapter 52, and verse 24. Jeremiah 52 and verse 24, and
the captain of the guard took Zariah, there he is, the chief
priest, the high priest, when Nebuchadnezzar captured and destroyed
the temple. He took Saria, the chief priest,
and Zephaniah, the second priest, and the three keepers of the
door. He took also out of the city a eunuch, which had the
charge of the men of war, and seven men of them that were near
the king's person, which were found in the city, and the principal
scribe of the host, who mustered the people of the land, and threescore
men of the people of the land that were found in the midst
of the city. So Nebuchadnezzar had done. The captain of the
guard took them and brought them to the king of Babylon, that's
Nebuchadnezzar, at Riblah. And the king of Babylon smote
them and put them to death in Riblah, in the land of Haman. Thus Judah was carried away captive
out of her own land. So the first one of these three
that are mentioned in this genealogy, I mentioned him because he was
executed by Nebuchadnezzar. And this made me think that only
eternity, only in eternity will the truth be revealed of how
many of God's people, of God's chosen people, of God's redeemed
people have been slain. by have been executed by the
enemies of the Lord. As the Apostle Paul said in Romans
eight in verse 36, for thy sake, for thy sake, we are killed all
the day long. We are accounted as sheep for
the slaughter. There's been a long history of
the world persecuting the church of the Lord Jesus Christ, and
many have shed their blood, many have been burned at the stake,
and many other means of torture have been executed upon God's
people. And here's one of them, this
priest. The second man that caused my
attention or gets my attention is Phinehas in verse five. The
son of Abishur, the son of Phinehas. He was a grandson, as we see,
of Aaron. And he was distinguished. Of
all these men, this man, Phinehas, was distinguished by his zeal
for the Lord. He was very zealous for the Lord,
for the Lord God. We know that when Israel came
out of Egypt, they spent 40 years because of their unbelief in
the wilderness. And when they came close to the
the border of the promised land after those 40 years. Remember,
they came into the land of Moab and the king of Moab, whose name
was Balak, he hired Balaam, Balaam, the false prophet. He hired him
to come and curse God's people, to curse the people of Israel. And God wouldn't allow him. He
couldn't open his mouth. He wanted to. Because he told
me, look, if you fill my house with silver, I can't say anything
but what the Lord puts into my mouth. And he was a false prophet,
no doubt about it. And yet he said some of the most
wonderful things about God. The truth about God. The fact
that God doesn't change. God is not a man. God is not
a man that he should lie. What a wonderful truth and comfort
that is to God's people that God doesn't change His immutability,
His promises. If God has promised, if God has
said it, it's going to happen. You can count on it because it's
the Word of God who never changes. And Balaam said some wonderful
things. You know, people say, That preacher
says some good things. Well, yeah, every preacher says
some good things, I would assume. But does he say the things that
are so important, the things that are most important? Does
he tell me the truth about God? Or does he present to me a God
that's more to be pitied than to be worshiped? Balaam said some very good things
about God. But God wouldn't let him curse
his people, but Balaam did tell Balak this. Here's a way you
can deal with these Israelites. You can have your women tempt
the men of Israel into idolatry. And that's exactly what happened.
Turn with me to Numbers chapter 25. And you see the zeal of this
man Phinehas. He's a priest, grandson of Aaron. In Numbers chapter 25. Numbers chapter 25 and verse
1, we read, And Israel abode in Jiddim, and the people began
to commit whoredom with the daughters of Moab. And they called the
people unto the sacrifices of their gods, and the people did
eat and bowed down to their gods. And Israel joined himself unto
Belpeor, and the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel.
And the Lord said unto Moses, take all the heads of the people
and hang them up before the Lord against the sun, that the fierce
anger of the Lord may be turned away from Israel. And Moses said
unto the judges of Israel, slay you every man, every one his
men that were joined unto Baal Peor. And behold, one of the
children of Israel came and brought unto his brethren a Midianites
woman in the sight of Moses. and in the sight of all the congregation
of the children of Israel." You're talking about pride and presumption
and sin. He's just going to show Moses
and the leaders of the nation of Israel, he's going to do his
way. He's going to have his way. I'll
do it my way. I don't care what God says. He
brought this woman into the camp of Israel, took her into his
tent, right in the face of Moses, who was the ruler of the nation
of Israel, really. And notice verse 7. And when
Phinehas, the son of Eliezer, the son of Aaron, the priest,
saw, he rose up from among the congregation and took a javelin
in his hand. And he went after the man of
Israel into the tent and thrust both of them through, the man
of Israel and the woman through her belly. So the plague was
stayed from the children of Israel. And those that died in the plague
were 20 and 4,000. Can you, can you imagine that? 24,000. God killed. through this plague because of
their evil, because of the sin of worshiping false idols. But notice, and the Lord spake
unto Moses saying, Phinehas, the son of Eliezer, the son of
Aaron, the priest, hath turned my wrath away from the children
of Israel, while he was zealous. This man is distinguished because
of his zeal. for the Lord, because he was
zealous for my sake, God's sake, among them, that I consume not
the children of Israel in my jealousy. Wherefore say, behold,
I give unto him my covenant of peace. God made a covenant with
Phinehas concerning the priesthood, the high priest. He shall have
it and his seed after him, even the covenant of an everlasting
priesthood. because he was zealous for his
God and made an atonement for the children of Israel. Now back
to Ezra. So that's two men. One man was
a martyr. One man was killed by Nebuchadnezzar,
the high priest. This other man, he's distinguished
to me by his zeal for the Lord. And the third man that I call
our attention to, of course, is Aaron. In verse 5, he is mentioned,
Aaron. Now we know that Aaron was the
brother of Moses. Remember when God appeared to
Moses at the bush that burned but was not consumed, Moses tried
to excuse himself by saying that he wasn't good at speaking. He
wasn't good at speaking. He always had trouble, he said,
speaking. eventually gave him Aaron to be his spokesman. Aaron
was his brother. And when Moses went to Egypt,
Aaron met him coming in to Egypt. And then when they came to Mount
Sinai, after God delivered them, they came to Mount Sinai and
God gave the covenant, that old covenant with Israel. Remember
that covenant included the tabernacle, the altars, the priest, the sacrifices. He, Aaron, was chosen to be the
first high priest. And he's a type. He served as
a type of our great high priest. He wasn't a great high priest.
He was just a high priest. There's only one great high priest,
right? The Lord Jesus Christ. He's our
great high priest. the author of eternal salvation,
we read in Hebrews, unto all them that obey him. Now the thought may occur unto
you, why then was Ezra not a high priest? He was a priest. He was
in the family of the priest, but he was not the firstborn.
The high priest usually was the firstborn of the high priest. And he would become the high
priest when His father died. All right, here's the second
thing, that which is said of Ezra in these verses. There are three things I'll point
out. Number one, he was a ready scribe in God's law, verse six. This Ezra went up from Babylon. He was a ready scribe in the
law of Moses, which the Lord God of Israel had given. He was
a ready scribe in God's law. John Gill pointed out this. He said it doesn't mean that
he was quick of hand. You know, they copied the Word
of God. Scribes, that was their work,
to copy the Word of God. And when we read here that he
was a ready scribe, Gill said that doesn't mean that he was
real fast at copying the Word of God. And I thought about that
this afternoon before I came over here and I thought about
the printing press. You know, that first printing
press was so crude compared to the way you can print things
today, copy things and print things. And yet in the providence
of God, I don't know of any invention that God has used any more than
the printing press. What a difference it made when
the Bible, the Word of God, could be printed and given out faster
than ever before and more economical than ever before after the printing
press was invented. We ought to thank God, all of
us tonight, that we live in a time when we have access to the Word
of God and And we have it on every hand. We know what this
means. He was a ready scribe in God's
law. It means that he was very conversant with the law. He was
well instructed in the law. He had studied it thoroughly,
and he was abundantly qualified to teach it. And again, Gil says
that the word used here in the Arabic language signifies to
be an expert. He was an expert in the law of
the Lord. Now the Jews teach that he is
the one, Ezra is the one who collected the various copies
of the law, all that he could find, and he published them in
an accurate edition. Now remember, think about this,
there's only two books that are going to be written after Ezra.
As far as I know, I'm sure that Haggai and Zechariah, those prophecies,
we've seen how they ministered during the time of Ezra. But
there would only be Nehemiah, the book of Nehemiah, and the
book of Malachi that would be written after the book of Ezra. The Jews believe that he is the
one who put together the Old Testament canon, so to speak.
The prophetical books, The historical books, the poetical books, all
of them. And Matthew Henry made this comment. If, he said, if he was raised
up of God and qualified and inclined to do this, all generations have
cause to call him blessed and to bless God for him. The Old
Testament canon. He also made this comment about
Ezra being a scribe, Matthew Henry did, and I quote, it was
a pity that such a worthy name as this should be worn as it
was in the degenerate ages of the Jewish church by men who
were professed enemies to Christ and his gospel. The Lord Jesus
Christ more than once said, whoa, Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees,
who were learned in the letter of the law, but strangers to
the spirit. The second thing about Ezra here,
we're told the good hand of the Lord is God was upon him in verse
nine. Now we understand this is a metaphor,
and it means that God's blessings were upon him. What can a man
do? Think about this. What can a
weak man, like all men are in the things of God, what can a
weak man do when the hand of the Lord is upon, when the good
hand of the Lord is upon him? We might better ask what cannot. a man do when the good hand of
the Lord is upon him. We know this in Hebrews 11. We
read about many who subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained
promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence
of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, Out of weakness were
made strong, wax valiant in fight, and turned to flight the armies
of aliens. What cannot a man do who has the good hand of the
Lord upon him? You've heard this old saying,
one man and God is the majority. I think it was D.L. Moody who
said, it's never been seen what God might accomplish through
one man who is fully committed to him. The third thing that
we say here about Ezra, in verse 10, it says he prepared his heart
to seek the law of the Lord. He took pains, and I emphasize
that word heart. You know, when we think about
him being a ready, an expert in the law of God, we may think
about his mind and surely that's involved. But no, it was his
heart. He prepared his heart. Salvation has to do with the
heart, doesn't it? With the heart, man believeth
unto righteousness. With the mouth, confession is
made unto salvation. But it's the heart. The Lord
said, give me thine heart. We come into this world, we have
a hard heart. God must give us a new heart,
a heart upon which he may write his word, his law. He prepared
his heart to seek the Lord and he did it. Notice it says that
he might keep it, that he might do it. He didn't just study the
word of the Lord, the law of the Lord, so that he would be
able to answer hard questions and, and explain mysteries that
nobody else could. No, he studied the word of God. He prepared his heart to study
the word of God that he might do it. Not just hear it, not
just teach it, not just know it in his head, but practice
it in his life. to know what the law tells us
we should not do and what the law tells us we should do. He
prepared his heart. And then we see that he was able
to teach others, to teach others. Now, the last part of my message,
the third point, the time, the time it took to travel from Babylon
to Jerusalem. He didn't get on a jet from the
airport in Babylon and fly to Jerusalem, did he? It took five
months, five months to travel. And I imagine some of that time
they were walking, some were maybe riding camels, maybe they
had some mules or something like that. But that's what we read
in verse nine. For upon the first day of the
first month, began he to go up from Babylon, and on the first
day of the fifth month, it took five months to travel. And I'll close with these comments
by Matthew Henry on those last words. As we must see the events
that shall occur in the hand of God, so we must see the hand
of God in the events that do occur. and acknowledge him with
thankfulness when we have reason to call it his good hand, the
good hand of the Lord, his God upon him. We're going to sing
a hymn and we'll be dismissed in prayer. And I pray that very
simple, steady, but I trust the Lord bless this word to all of
us. I've enjoyed preaching from Ezra
and from Zechariah and Haggai. I think it's a portion of the
scriptures that most of us are not that familiar with. But all
scripture is given by inspiration of God and it's profitable, all
of it. May God make this profitable
to all of us. Let's stand as we sing.