Let's turn tonight in our Bibles
to Ezra chapter 4. Ezra chapter 4, and we will read
the first five verses in this chapter. Ezra chapter 4. Now when the adversaries of Judah
and Benjamin heard that the children of the captivity builded the
temple unto the Lord God of Israel, then they came to Zerubbabel
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 Esarhaddon, king of Assyria, which brought
us up hither. But Zerubbabel and Joshua and
the rest of the chief of the fathers of Israel said unto them,
you have nothing to do with us to build a house unto our God.
But we ourselves together will build unto the Lord God of Israel
as King Cyrus, the king of Persia, hath commanded us. Then 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. We looked last time at the laying
of the foundation of the temple of the Lord. You look back to
chapter three, And verse 11, where we read, 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 man
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 we saw when they laid the
foundation of the temple of the Lord in Jerusalem, returning
out of captivity, that some shouted with joy and some were weeping
with sorrow. And we want to say that the laying
of the foundation, that's my first point tonight, the work
had begun. as we began chapter four, the
work had begun with the laying of the foundation. We all recognize,
we all know, that the work of laying the foundation had to
be first. You don't just start building
the walls until first you have laid the foundation. Now I want
you to turn with me, keep your places here, but look with me
in the New Testament, in the letter of Ephesians, chapter
two, Ephesians chapter two and verse
20. Well, I'll start in verse 19. Ephesians two and verse 19. Now, therefore you are no more
strangers and foreigners. He's writing to Gentile believers. You are no more strangers and
foreigners, but fellow citizens, citizens with the saints and
of the household of God. and are built upon the foundation
of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the
chief cornerstone. The foundation has to be laid
first. As we read on there, in whom
all the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy
temple in the Lord, in whom you also are builted together. Now
notice this, for an habitation of God through the spirit. They were building the temple
of the Lord there in Jerusalem, and they had to lay the foundation
first. And God's spiritual temple, the
church, the church of the Lord Jesus Christ, we know the foundation
is Christ. He's the foundation of the apostles
and prophets. Not only is he the foundation,
but he's the chief cornerstone. He connects the sides together. He connected the Jews and the
Gentiles together. There's no longer that middle
wall of partition that had existed from the time that the law was
given by Moses. But we're all, all of his people,
we are all built upon this foundation and Christ is the foundation.
The foundation has to be laid first. When was the foundation
of the church laid? It was laid in eternity. It was
laid in the purpose of God before the foundation of the world and
the council of peace between God, the father, the son, the
son covenanted to be made flesh and to purchase his church with
his own blood. Now the stones which were used
in building that first temple that Solomon built, the stones
which will be used and building the temple that Ezra and his
workers were building was lifeless, lifeless, cold, hard stones. But the stones with which the
Lord builds this spiritual temple are living stones. Look with
me in 1 Peter, living stones. And that's you. Think of yourself.
If you are a child of God tonight, you are one of these stones in
the spiritual temple of the Lord, the church of the Lord Jesus
Christ. And you are built upon the foundation,
same foundation that the apostles were built on. So you are built
upon the foundation, which is Christ. First Peter chapter two
and verse five, the apostle says, Well, let's read verse 4 also. as living or lively stones are
built up a spiritual house and holy priesthood to offer up spiritual
sacrifices acceptable to God by Jesus Christ. So let's go
back to Ezra. That was my first point. The
work had begun and that's always first, the laying of the foundation.
Now, second, the work immediately has adversaries. Immediately,
they had adversaries. Here are some in verses one and
two that we read. Here are some that came to the
governor, to Zerubbabel, and asked to take part. They wanted
to help build the temple. Look at that again. Now when
the adversaries of Judah and Benjamin heard that the children
of the captivity builded the temple unto the Lord God of Israel,
then they came to Zerubbabel, he's the governor, 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 this king of Assyria. Now, this, I assume,
was a great temptation. A great temptation for these
Israelites. They were few in number. They
were not the wealthiest people in the world, that's for sure.
And they had undertaken a great work. A great work to build the
temple of the Lord. It was great in size and it had
to be magnificent, as Solomon said, because it was a temple
of the Lord God, God Almighty. No doubt this was a temptation.
Let us help you. Let us be involved in this building
with you. I would imagine some of them,
some of the people may have reasoned, we need all the help we can get.
We need all the help we can get. Let them help us. Let them work
with us. Surely, some may have said, surely
it won't hurt to let these people take part in the work. Won't
hurt anything. Who are these people? I want
to point out several things about these people. Who were these
people who professed to serve their God and to sacrifice to
God? Well, keep your places, but let's
go backwards this time to 2 Kings. 2 Kings chapter 17. If we had more time, I would
read the entire chapter, but seeing we don't, I want to just
point out a few verses in this chapter. 2 Kings chapter 17,
and the first verse is verse 6. In the ninth year of Hosea
the king of Assyria took Samaria. Now Samaria was more or less
the capital of the 10 tribes of Israel. Once they split, once
they were divided, you had the two tribes are then called Judah
for the most part. It was Judah and Benjamin. And
then the other 10 tribes were referred to in the Old Testament
as Israel, sometimes as Ephraim. But this is what we're reading
here. In the ninth year of Hosea, this
was the king of Israel, the king of Assyria took Samaria and carried
Israel away into Assyria and placed them in Hala, and Abel
by the river of Goshen and in the cities of the Medes. So get
the picture here. There's a nation of Israel, what
was left of them. They're carried, they're conquered
by the king of Assyria and he deports them. He takes them out
of their country and transports them to other places. Then if you will look in verse
12, And remember, it was a sin. It
was a sin. We read there, he carried Israel
away. In verse 12, for they served
idols wherever the Lord had said unto them, you shall not do this
thing. Yet the Lord testified against
Israel and against Judah by all the prophets and by all the seers,
saying, turn you from your evil ways. Keep my commandments and
my statutes. According to all the law which
I commanded your fathers and which I sent to you by my servants
the prophets, notwithstanding, they would not hear. They would
not hear the prophets God sent one after the other. What did
they do? They hardened their necks, stiff-necked. Have you ever tried to bow without
bending your neck? They were stiff-necked. They
would bow down before these false gods, their idols, but they would
not bow, they would not submit to the God who was the God of
all creation and did not believe in the Lord their God. So they're
carried away because of their sin. Look down to verse 18. Therefore the Lord was very angry
with Israel and removed them out of his sight. There was none
left but the tribe of Judah only. That one nation now called Judah
is the only part of the nation of Israel that was left. The
ten tribes, they're carried away. They're taken away by the king
of Assyria. Now these people, or when When the king of Assyria
took the Israelites away, he repopulated the land with other
people, other nations. Notice in verse 24. And the king
of Assyria brought men from Babylon, and from Cuthath, and from Avah,
and from Hamath, and from Sepharim, and placed them in the cities
of Samaria instead of the children of Israel. And they possessed
Samaria and dwelt in the cities thereof. So we've got the depopulation
of this part of Palestine of the 10 tribes and the repopulation
of these people who were from various nations. And they're
now in the land, living in the cities of Samaria. Now these
people did not know and they did not fear the true God. They
brought their gods with them, no doubt, they brought their
idols with them, but they did not know the true God. If you
notice in verse 25, God sent lions. God sent lions, the king
of the forest, the king of beasts, the lions among them. And so
it was at the beginning of their dwelling there that they feared
not the Lord. Therefore, the Lord sent lions
among them, which slew some of them." Well, we've got to do
something here. These lions are going to take
us away. They're going to kill all of
us. And so they send a word. They appeal to the king of Assyria
for help. If you notice in verse 26, we
don't know the manner of the God of this land. Wherefore they
spake to the king of Assyria, saying, The nations which thou
hast removed and placed in the cities of Samarit. And notice
this, We don't know the manner, know not the manner of the God
of the land. Therefore he hath sent lions
among them, and behold, they slay them, because they know
not the manner of the God of the land. What they're asking
for is the king to send somebody to teach them about God. They appealed to the king because
they didn't know the manner. They did know, they did recognize
that these lines was a direct result of God's judgment upon
them. They did recognize that. Well,
notice in verse 27 and 28, the king of Assyria sent them a priest. Then the king of Assyria commanded
saying, Carry thither one of the priests whom you brought
from this, and let them go and dwell there, and let them teach
them the manner of the God of the land. Then one of the priests
whom they had carried away from Samaria came and dwelt in Bethel,
and taught them how they should fear the Lord. Now, remember
this, this priest, he was from the northern tribes. He wasn't
a priest ordained of God, because when the nation divided, Jeroboam
was the first king of Israel, and what did he do? He set up
a golden calf in, I think it was Bethel, and Dan, he said,
it's too much trouble for you folks to go all the way back
over there to Jerusalem to worship. No, just take your choice, take
your pick, wherever you want to worship in these two places,
and the scripture says he made priests of the lowest of the
people. So this would be one of those
priests that the king of Assyria sent back to teach them the manner
of the God of that land. He was not a Levite, no doubt.
Well, notice the result of him teaching them the manner of the
God in verse 32. So they feared the Lord and made
unto themselves of the lowest of them priests of the high places,
which sacrificed for them in the houses of the high places.
They feared the Lord and served their own gods. What a condemnation,
right? They feared the Lord but served
their own gods. After the manner of the nations
whom they carried away from thence. Look down to verse 41. So these nations feared the Lord
and served their graven images, both their children and their
children's children, as did their fathers. So do they unto this
day. Now they feared, the scripture
here says they feared the Lord, but that fear that they had is
what we refer to as a slavish fear. It's not the fear of God,
which is the beginning of wisdom. They feared the Lord because
of those lions. That's the reason they feared
the Lord. The scripture says this about the fear of the Lord. In Proverbs, we read, but the
fear of the Lord, or by the fear of the Lord, men depart from
evil. You see, godly fear, that fear that God works in the hearts
of his people, the fear of the Lord, which is a beginning of
wisdom, causes men to depart from evil. These people, yes,
they profess to serve the Lord, but they continued with their
false gods, continued to worship and serve their false gods. Now go back to Ezra with me.
So that's who these people are. They come and they ask Zerubbabel,
verse two, then they came to Zerubbabel, 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, and then the king of Assyria who
brought them into that land is named. Notice in their request to work
with them what they said. We seek your God as you do. They didn't say, we seek our
God, as you do. He wasn't their God. No, we seek
your God, your God, the God of the nation of Israel. We seek
your God. And then also notice they say,
we do sacrifice unto him since the days of the king of Assyria. Now that was probably true. They
probably had sacrificed, but it was nothing more than will
worship. You know what will worship is?
People of their own will, they just decide how they're going
to worship God, how they're going to serve the Lord. No, we have God's will here in
the Word of God, His written will, His written Word, the will
of God. And we must serve Him, we must
worship Him, we must follow Him, we must praise Him according
to His will. Will worship is just to set up
anything you want to and call that worship of God. They were
guilty of will worship. And the reason I say that is
because they said we, notice we seek your God as you do, and
we do, that's present tense, right? We do sacrifice. Well, where were they sacrificing?
Where had they been sacrificing all that time that the temple
in Jerusalem had been destroyed? Well, wherever they lived, they
sacrificed, but that was not God's way, was it? God's way
was upon this altar, the altar that he commanded Moses to build
in the place where he put his name. And that place was Jerusalem. Yeah, they were sacrificing probably
in the mountains and in the valleys and everywhere else, but it was
nothing more than will worship. It wasn't accepted of God. But notice something else, not
only about these people that asked to help them work, but
I'm impressed to see the unity, if you notice in verse three,
the unity of the Jews when they responded to that offer of help. But Zerubbabel and Joshua, notice,
and the rest of the chief of the fathers of Israel said unto
them, You have nothing to do. You see the unity. There's not
any anyone saying, well, maybe y'all could help. No, all of
them, the governor, the chief, the high priest, and the rest
of the chief of the fathers of Israel in unison said, you have
nothing to do with us to build a house under our God. If the offer, I said a few minutes
ago, this had to have been a temptation. When they offered to help, I
mean, we can use their help, won't hurt anything, you know.
If it were a temptation, they overcame that temptation, didn't
they? If that had been a temptation, they sure overcame it because
they said, no, you're not going to have anything to do in this
matter of building a temple to our God. You know, in the New Testament,
we have a wonderful promise concerning temptation. A wonderful warning
and a wonderful promise all in one verse. In verses 1 Corinthians
10 and verse 13. And our Lord taught us to pray,
lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. How
many times do we pray that? How often do we pray that? Lead
us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. We have
this promise in 1 Corinthians. There hath no temptation taken
you, but such is common to man. But God is faithful, who will
not suffer you to be tempted above that you are able, but
will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that you
may be able to bear it. Unity among God's people, that's
what I am impressed with here, the unity with which they answered
these people. And unity among God's people
is a great blessing. It's a blessing from the Lord.
That scripture in Psalm 133 and verse 1, the psalmist said, behold,
how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together
in unity. They would not allow these men
to work with them in building the temple. Because it would
be like trying to mix water and oil together. It just won't mix. Just won't mix. And here you've
got the people of God and the people of the world. They're
offering to help. No, no. It just won't work. It just doesn't help. The third part of the message,
the adversaries were able to weaken. We read, able to weaken
and trouble the Jews in verses four and five. Then the people
of the land weakened the hands of the people of Judah and troubled
them in building. How did they weaken their hands,
trouble them? Probably it was a combination
of things which they would do, threatening them, no doubt trying
to scare them, make them afraid. They probably hindered them receiving
the supplies they needed. Remember the tire inside and
the lumber, I'll put it that way, the lumber, the cedars,
they had to come from Lebanon and they had to be floated in
the Mediterranean down to where they were brought into the land
to come to Jerusalem. No doubt they hindered that supply
line every way they could. And then notice in verse five, it
says, and hired counselors. When you read they hired, they
bribed. They bribed counselors. That is, remember the king of
Persia, he had given the command to build the temple. He said,
the Lord has commanded me to build him a house in Jerusalem.
And he gave these people all the things that they would have
need to build this house. But he's in Assyria, and here
they are in Palestine. It's a long way. He had his civil
leaders and rulers here. And so they were able, these
Samaritans, they were able, no doubt, to bribe the counselors
and civil rulers to cause problem. to weaken their hands, to trouble
them in this work, to frustrate them, to slow down the building
of the walls. Well, I pray the Lord would bless
these three points. The foundation first, that's
Christ. We will build the temple. God's
people will build the temple. And yes, we have adversaries.
We're going to have adversaries as long as we are in this world.
And every work for God is going to experience some adversaries,
every work. Satan's not dead. He's still
like a roaring lion, walking about, seeking whom he may devour. I pray the Lord would bless this
word and give us faith and comfort through the word of God to trust
in him, to believe him. to do what he said he would do. God is faithful. Brother Bill,
if you will, come.