The Building Begins Anew | Ezra 5 (Mark Evans)

The main ideas from this information are: - The prophets Haggai and Zechariah encouraged the Jews to rebuild the house of God in Jerusalem. - The officials questioned the Jews about their authority to build. - The Jews responded that they were serving the God of heaven and earth. - God protected them from the opposition and allowed the building to continue. God always finishes His work and His people must trust in Him, even in the face of opposition. We do come now to Ezra chapter 5, and so to get us going, I will read the first five verses of Ezra chapter 5. And these are the words of the one and only God. And now the prophets Haggai and Zechariah, son of Iddo, prophesied to the Jews who were in Judah and Jerusalem, in the name of the God of Israel who was over them. Then Zerubbabel, the son of Sheltiel, and Jeshua, the son of Jehoshaddak, arose and began to rebuild the house of God that is in Jerusalem. And the prophets of God were with them, supporting them. At the same time, Titanei, the governor of the province beyond the river, and Shethar Bozanai and their associates came to them and spoke to them thus, Who gave you a decree to build this house and to finish this structure? They also asked them this, What are the names of the men who are building this building? But the eye of their God was on the elders of the Jews, and they did not stop them until the report should reach Darius, and then an answer be returned by letter concerning it. The grass withers and the flower fades. Let us pray. Our gracious God and heavenly Father, how true it is, the eye of God is upon us, that You, Lord, were over them just as You are over us. And how soon we forget that. And so we pray this morning that by Your Spirit You would give us eyes to see, You would give us ears to hear, You would quicken us to see that You, the Lord of glory, the King of beauty, are with us now and even to the end of the age. In Christ's name we pray, Amen. You may be seated. Well, have you ever started a project only to not finish a project? I was reminded of this a couple of weeks ago. I set out to build a simple garden box, but did not finish the project. To spare my ego, I will not bore you with why, but I'm sure you could queue up in your mind many similar failures of projects you began, but projects you did not finish. And we have those failures for many reasons, all right? Sometimes we don't have the funds to start what we...to finish what we began. Sometimes we don't have the energy, the strength, the skill to finish the job. In other seasons, we don't have the time to finish what we started. Or even in other cases, we do possess all of those things. We have the strength. We have the skill. We have the time. And yet something from the outside obstructs us, right? This force that we cannot control. And you can see in all those instances, the limitations of what it is to be human gets in the way. Because isn't it the glory of our great God that He never faces such limitations? Our Almighty God is never short of strength or power. Our all-wise God never lacks the wisdom or the skill to finish a job. Our all-sufficient God is certainly never short of the funds or the means to finish a project. Our eternal God is never short of time to get done what He needs to get done. And above all, of course, our sovereign God is certainly never obstructed by some outside force that He cannot control or subdue. And it is very much that glory that we are set up to behold in chapter 5, that the good work that God has begun, He will see it through to completion. God will always finish the job. And our joy is that He would use us, you and I, as His humble instruments to display His glory. But in order to fully appreciate that truth, we need to re-enter the story of Ezra, back into the minds, the hearts of the Israelites, as to where we ended last week. If you were not with us last week, chapter 4 closed with this crushing blow that the building of the temple, which was the one and only goal of Israel, came to a stop. We saw that for the first time in any meaningful way, these Israelites faced great disappointment and discouragement. All of their work, all of their effort, all of their obedience, all of their toil that they poured into building the temple came to this immediate stop, all because of the accusations and the oppositions of their opponents, God's enemies. And so we concluded last week, witnessing God's people in particular absolutely lost that battle. And that is where chapter 5 resumes the story. We ended last week wondering, waiting, what's next for the people of God? Was all of that labor in vain? Was all of their striving useless? Was all of their faith futile? And I would say for you, if you've ever been in any kind of season of discouragement that inevitably does come with pursuing godliness, at some point you're asking those very same questions. Is this all there is for me? Was all of my striving in vain? Is all of my faith futile? Is this all there is for me and for my people or for my church? Has God brought us to this point only for our demise? And that is where chapter 5 picks up the story. So we'll walk through it looking at three simple parts. We're going to look at God's work revived, secondly God's work challenged, and then thirdly God's work entrusted. But the main point is very simple. It is that God always finishes His work. The good work that God has begun, He always completes it. And with that, that is the Christian's great confidence and great courage that our God finishes what He starts. And we see that truth immediately in this opening verse because again, as we know, Israel's head at this point is hanging so low in discouragement. The right to ask, what is God going to do for His weary and discouraged people? Well, kids, one thing to think about that, that God does in particular, in particular in the Old Testament, when it is time to strengthen His people, our God reaches into His quiver and He pulls out an arrow that is a prophet. And He releases that prophet, clothed with the Spirit, to bring God's Word so that it would dwell richly in the heart of His people and strengthen them. As the psalmist says, His ministers are like a flaming fire, that His ministers come and burn the Word of God into the hearts of the people and set it aflame once again. Why would God need to do that? Well, because the tides of discouragement slowly erode the Word of God, don't they? The truth starts to grow cold. Those embers of our love for God start to dissipate and no longer burn with the fire that we once had. We may even be growing numb to the things of God. And so you can rightly imagine, that kind of apathy is just where God's people are at at this point in Ezra, stalled out and stalemated. Well, enter the prophets. You see in verse 1, these two hounds of heaven, Haggai and Zechariah, they come, they are released and verse 1 says they do this, they prophesied to the Jews who were in Judah and Jerusalem in the name of the God of Israel who was over them. Now firstly, let's clear up any potential misconceptions about the concept of prophecy. What does it mean to prophesy? To our modern ears, to prophesy is often understood as an ability to tell the future, to accurately predict what will happen before it happens. And no doubt, that is true and included in the Old Testament prophets' work. But the prophet of the Old Testament had a far richer, far deeper calling than simply foretelling what is to come. In fact, more often than foretelling, God's prophets of old would foretell. That is to say, rather than proclaiming, here is God's will for you for the future, they would more often proclaim, no, here is God's will for you today. Right now, in this present moment, hear the word of the Lord. Again, why would God's people have need of that? Well, because God's people back then are very much like you and I are today. We forget God's word. We succumb to the lies of the world and of our own flesh. Our hearts begin to stray into sinful disobedience and slothful negligence. And so the prophets would come on scene and they would summon God's people back to repentance and faith, saying, behold your God. Have you forgotten who this God is? Have you forgotten the rock of ages? Who is your refuge? Who is your strength? And their need is very much our greatest need today, isn't it? That God's all-sufficient word, God's all-sufficient word would be treasured up in your hearts, laid up in your mind, believed with all that you have and walked in in obedience. That is what we most need. And so Haggai and Zechariah, they show up on scene and they do just that. And notice this phrase there in verse one, they prophesy in the name of the God who was over them. Oh, we're right to read that as if the prophets are saying, you guys have begun to believe that the enemy is over you, that your circumstances is over you, that your defeat hangs over you. It's the very same trap and lie that we fall into, isn't it? My sin has dominion over me. The world is over me. My flesh is over me. The prophets come along and they declare, no, your God is over you. Not in the future, your God is over you right now, today, at this very moment. And we get from the book of Haggai an even clearer picture as to what's really going on and that these exiles have actually slid from discouragement into the status quo, a settling for complacency, that they digressed from building God's house with vigor to now saying, you know, now is not the time to rebuild the house of the Lord. In light of all the opposition we face, in light of all the obstacles, now is not the time to do the Lord's work. And so they moved on to a life of self-interest and a life of self-indulgence. And in a word, Haggai comes to them and says, yeah, how's that working out for you? How's that going for you? Consider your ways. You plant much, but you harvest little. Oh, yeah, you make a lot of money, but you put it into a bag with holes. You drink, but you're never satisfied. Are you hearing what he's saying? You really think you're going to have the fullness of life, the satisfaction of life apart from fellowship with your God. And so it is for us. We fall into thinking, I will serve God with half of my heart. Now is not the time for sacrifice. Now is not the time for repentance. Now is not the time for obedience. The great Augustine, and I know the name, just the mere name Augustine, it sounds so pious, right? So reverential to our ears, doesn't it? But Augustine, in his biography, in his confession, actually prayed the prayer to God, God, give me purity, but not yet. Give me purity, but not yet. Just give me a little more lust, a little more me, a little more indulgence, a little more of my life on my terms. He's drinking from cisterns that would never satisfy his thirst. And Haggai shows up on scene and he told them the very same thing he would tell us if he were here. Now is the time. Now is the day of salvation. Now is the time. Now is always the time for repentance and faith and obedience. Do not harden your hearts in the day of salvation, which is today. And so he went on to encourage God's weary, complacent people, saying, do strong, be strong, do the work because God is with you. It's such a simple truth and it's the very same thing we have to hear today, isn't it? To a people who have lost the battle, to a people who are starting to turn inwards came this truth. Your God is with you. And he says the very same thing to us today, that he is with us today through the Lord Jesus Christ and by the power of his spirit. You see, God sends us something today far better, far greater than any prophet, right? Don't ever think, wow, wouldn't that be something if God sent prophets today? Wouldn't that be something if there was a Haggai today who God sent to us? Don't ever think that because that is to go backwards. What do we have is actually far better. What did we just read from Hebrews? God has spoken to us right now today through his son, who is the radiance of the glory of God and by the power of his spirit. And what is ours to do, but to receive his word and store it up in our hearts? That's a question. Is the word of God at work in you today? Or is it choked out by the complacency of your soul? Is it choked out by the cares of the world? Is it choked out by fear? But when we receive God's word with meekness, with faith, it does not fail to bear fruit in our lives. And you see exactly that. This fruit of God's word spoken through the prophets. Just look what happens next in verse two. Then Zerubbabel and Joshua arose and began to rebuild the house of God that was in Jerusalem with the prophets supporting them. Do you see what happened? They rose up. They rose up. They were down, discouraged, defeated, complacent. And they rose up and they overcame. Now, let's not for a minute think that this is them pulling themselves up by their own bootstraps. Right? Let's not for a minute pretend this is a believe-in-yourself Disney movie or that this is the American dream when the rugged individual heroically just wills himself to victory by sheer grit. No, you see it so clearly in verse two. What does it say there? It was the prophets of God who were with them, supporting them. God sent his prophets equipped with his spirit to preach his word to accomplish his work. And that is how the church rises up. That is how the church overcomes. We are not self-determined. We are God determined. And what is the victory that overcomes the world? Is it not our faith? And why faith? Because it is faith in Jesus Christ who has himself overcome the world and defeated our enemy. And you see a preview of that here in Ezra 5. And so there's a word on God's work revived. And now let us look at God's work challenged. Because by now, if you've been with us, you've probably noticed that the cadence of Ezra is very much like the cadence of the Christian life. Every time there is a step forward, you just know it's going to be met by a counter force. And we have no exception here. Right? Isn't it interesting that as the exiles are building their own homes and doing their own thing, all is well, no opposition. The minute they start to build the house of the Lord, who comes knocking but the enemy? And you see that there in verse three. Just hear those words. At the same time. Notice how instantaneous this counter strike is, right? In a moment, Israel rises up. At the same time. Here comes the governor and his buddy, Shazar, Boaz and I, and their associates. And they ask him this question. Who gave you a decree to build this temple and to finish this structure? Now last week, we saw very intense, very aggressive opposition. Now this encounter may be much more moderate. It might even be mild opposition. We're probably right not to read too much aggression into this inquiry. Remember, a lot of time has elapsed since that first brick was laid on the temple. And so this governor might just be sincerely investigating here, right? I just need to see your building permit. I just need to make sure that things are in order. Who knows? The governor, he might have made for a great Presbyterian. He just wants things done decently and in order. That said, you know the history of hostility here. Opposition could very easily escalate from moderate to intense very quickly. For instance, if you read the accounts of foreign missionaries, you can read that even though things are peaceful for them today, they always had this sense of just one knock on the door away from being detained, maybe being put in prison, maybe being questioned by the authorities. And you can see that kind of ominous cloud form in verse 4 because the governor keeps on going and the governor says, I need the names of the men who are building this building. Okay, so you can see now if the officials have your name written down, now we are in a new situation, right? Your identity is now on notice, right? Your name is in the database. The facial recognition software has you stored, has you tracked. And so while there's no immediate threat of persecution or of danger, you can see how this question, it kind of carries the weight, the angst that you are on the radar, as it were. And so we can imagine that feeling of fear, of anxiety, maybe even complacency washing back over them again. We see once again, our God is going to finish the work that He began. And so verse 5 says this, even though they're asking these questions, give me your names, verse 5 says, but the eye of their God was on them and they did not stop them until the report should reach Darius. God was over them. We get this bird's eye view to see the opposition had this intention, had this plan to interfere once again with the building project. As soon as Israel rises up and gets to work, these officials, these bureaucrats intend to hold up Israel once again. But God, our God, thwarted their plans and He stopped this opposition. This is God's great providential protection of His people. This is what our God does for us. As the psalmist says, had God not been on our side, we would have been swallowed up alive. And so what do we pray every single Lord's Day? We pray, deliver us from evil. And though we pray it, the question is, do we believe it? Do we know in our heart of hearts that our God, as our Good Shepherd, He is watching over us? He does have providential care for us. He is working out all things, all details, all plans, all decisions according to the counsel of His will. Because what that should do is encourage us to face great opposition, great difficulty and great hurdles. Now, General Stonewall Jackson once commented and said that he felt as safe in battle as he did in bed. I feel as safe in battle as I do in bed. And that was not him being brash, or being arrogant, or flexing his machismo, it wasn't anything like that, because Stonewall Jackson said, I can feel that safe, even if bullets are whizzing by me, because I know God has fixed, He has appointed my time of death, and that God's eyes are upon me. That is the Christian's confidence to do the Lord's work. And so next week we'll see how that delay benefited Israel. But for now, when we see the governor, he does what every good bureaucrat does when he doesn't know what to do next, he sends off an email. So he shoots off this letter, verse 6, and he says, I've compiled all my findings and here is my report, and he sends it off to the king and he says, King, you should know this temple, it's being built. It's going on diligently and it is prospering in their hands. And then verse 10, he kind of starts to cover his backside and says, Hey, king, believe me, I tried to ask them, I tried to even get their names for you. I've done everything I'm supposed to do, and now I'm escalating this situation up the ladder for your attention. Now what's important for us to see is that we get to see how Israel, stirred up by the prophets, stirred up by God's word, how they responded to these questions. We get to see how Israel, once complacent, discouraged, weary, how they are now entrusting everything to the Lord's work when questioned, as to why they are doing what they are doing. So in order to just fully appreciate their testimony, let's just make sure we understand the nature of the question. You can glance once more at verse 9. These government officials come to the elders and they ask them this question, Men, builders, who gave you a decree to build this house? That is an authority question. By what authority do you build? On whose authority do you build? And now, how might they answer that question? Well, they could certainly give a very palatable answer. They could simply say, King Cyrus told us that we could build. Remember, Cyrus is the one who gave the decree. Cyrus said, yep, you can come home and build. They, in fact, do mention Cyrus' name in verse 13. So they could have just mentioned Cyrus' name only, left it at that. Cyrus is the one who said we could build. Take it up with him. But they don't say that, do they? Let's read their response in verse 11 regarding the question, Who gave you the authority to build this temple? Comes this answer, We are the servants of the God of heaven and earth. It is of the God of heaven and earth that we do what we do. I do wonder, how would the modern evangelical church, seduced by secularism, how would we answer that question? It might go something like this. We are the servants of a local God who limits himself to Jerusalem. We are the servants of a God who only does spiritual things on Sundays, a God who is confined to the walls of his little temple. We're just the servants of a God who is over the Jews only and who only rules over the trans-Euphrates region. That's our God. But that is not their answer, is it? Their answer is our God is the God of heaven and earth. And just know, this answer, it's even more audacious in that in the ancient Near East, if you were a conquered people, the assumption is that you have a weak God. If you're a victorious people, the assumption is you have a strong God. And so here is tiny Israel, 43,000 people coming out of captivity, coming out of defeat and yet claiming, professing, our God is the God of the universe. Yes, we know there are other so-called gods. Yes, we know there is a God called Baal and Asherim and Marduk and Tiamat and all these other gods. We have, you know, our God is the ruler of heaven and of earth. And that is why we build. And so let's just imagine that same question today. Where does the authority of the church come from? That is a massively important question that we had better have a very good answer for. On what authority is the new temple, that is the church, built? Does that authority come from living in a democracy? Does that authority come from a charismatic, gifted leader? Does that authority come from a law, a public ordinance, a ruler? Does that authority come from the state? Who grants the church the authority to preach and teach and extend the kingdom of God? We see that our New Testament answer is really quite the same as this Old Testament answer. We, you and I, are servants of the God of heaven and of earth. For how did the Lord Jesus Christ commission His disciples to build the new temple? What did He tell them? I, I have all authority in heaven and on earth, therefore, on that basis, go. Go and make disciples in My name. The mission of the church flows directly from the authority of Jesus Christ, who possesses a this-world kind of authority, an earthly kind of authority that knows nothing of our modern relativistic, secular, pluralistic kind of thought. And if ever there was a time for the church to recover that understanding, that time is now. And far too often, Christians fall into thinking that Jesus has a kind of heaven-only authority, a kind of so-called spiritual authority that really only amounts to the idea that Jesus is Lord over the interior of my soul. He's Lord over my heart. And what's missing is that Christ is King of the world, of this world that He bought with His blood. And He commissions the church, every church, go and build My temple under My authority and My headship. Well, rather than puffing up the church in arrogance, that should only foster great humility. And that's exactly what comes next. You see this great honesty as they continue on in verse 12. They go on to say, quote, Our fathers angered the God of heaven, and so God gave them into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, who destroyed this house. You see what happened. They learned this lesson, right? They're thoroughly honest and forthright. We are where we are because of God's righteous judgment and His exile. As Scripture says, judgment begins at the household of God. They could have so easily played the victim here, right? They could have said, No, it's actually Babylon's fault. Babylon is the one who oppressed us. Babylon is the one who tyrannized us. Babylon is the one who carried us into exile. No, instead, they say, No, our past sins, they were against God. And they recognize God's chastisement. And this, too, we must recover. The evangelical church is great at drumming up past sins, but not as sins against God. We drum up sins that are cultural sins, sins against whatever the spirit of the age happens to be, sins against popular opinion. But the sinfulness of sin is always, firstly, chiefly, an anger against God, against God Himself. Judgment begins at the household of God. But unlike the world, God judges His church so as to purify her, to refine her, to beautify her, to burn off the dross so that the gold might remain. And you see that in Ezra. It's as if these exiles have learned the consequences of the false worship of their fathers. They acknowledge, they stared in the face, this is the destruction that our sin brought upon us, and how it angered God, and how it broke God's covenant. And now they can move forward as a more sturdy, more sanctified people. And this is good and right for us to do likewise, nationally, corporately, individual, that we ought to long for the day when the church as a whole confesses, we have angered the God of heaven. We have gloried in our shame. We have despised God's righteousness. Here are the sins of our fathers, and here are our sins. God have mercy on us. Because judgment begins at God's house. But we're to be equally encouraged that God's judgment is not Him punishing us. No, it is Him purifying us. That God is not despising His church. He is discipling His church to be more and more like the Lord Jesus Christ. And He will finish the work that He has begun. And so now all that's left for these exiles is they leave it in God's hands. And so verse 13 and following, they say, they testify, here's what God has done through Cyrus and they close the very last verse saying, therefore, if it seems good to the king, search the royal archives and just see if this decree was made by Cyrus. So they end the letter by placing their trust that the same God who spoke through Cyrus is the very same God who will bring them through in this moment. And so as we begin to close, let us lay up in our hearts but two great uses of this section of Ezra. Firstly, firstly, the Christian virtue of determination, the Christian virtue of determination, or to use a more biblical word, simply steadfastness, persevering through difficult circumstances. In our day, determination as a virtue is falling on hard times. It is said that our youth lack motivation, our adults lack direction, that the American church is softer than it has ever been, that we have no resilience. But what have we seen thus far from the saints of Ezra is this resolute determination. Now very important qualification, this again is not self-determination, this is not the God of self-esteem, this is spirit wrought determination. This steadfast holy ambition to resist obstacles, to oppose opposition, to strive for obedience with an unwavering determination by the grace of God. And we've seen just that this morning. Not as individuals, but as a people, they rise up, they shake off discouragement, and they did what God called them to do, not by looking within, but by receiving God's word and receiving God's strength to do what He called them to do. And if we're wondering, well, where do I look? Where do I go to find the climax of spirit wrought determination? Look no further than the Lord Jesus Christ, that what was said of Him, that He set His face like a flint to go to Jerusalem, meaning that nothing would deter Him, nothing would stop Him from going to the cross. And think of what He faced, that He faced the greatest opposition of all, He faced the greatest enemy of all, He faced the greatest death of all, and above all, He faced the greatest agony, the wrath of a holy God for our sin, and nothing stopped Him. He persevered steadfastly by the power of the Spirit, and He did it to the very end, drinking it down to the dregs. That is spirit wrought determination, and it is ours to follow in His train. Are you steadfast? Could you say along with Paul, I worked harder than any of them, not I, but the grace of God in me. Secondly, if such steadfastness seems too far out of reach, then connect it to the second point. Our reason, the reason to be steadfast is that our God finishes the job. Our God finishes the job. Which makes sense, because our God is the one who starts the job, right? The good work that God begins, He always finishes, and we've seen that today in its fullness. Our God was over them, the eyes of God was watching them, God stopped the plan of the enemy, God providentially set His prophets, and we witnessed how God sent His word and stirred up this complacent people. And we have the same, indeed, better confidence today that we will finish the race, that we must finish the race, and the only reason we can is solely because of the free and unchangeable love of God for His people, for He is the God who will not fail to bring us to glory. Let us pray. Our gracious God and Holy Father, we do praise You that You are the God who has begun the work in us that we would never begin, that You are the God who perseveres the work in us that we would never persevere in on our own, and that You are the God who will finish the work that has begun within us because of Your free and unchangeable love, a love that You have shown us in the grace of Jesus Christ, who has carried our sin far away and who has made us new creatures. And so we do pray for us that we would not be unaffected by Your word and teach us what it is to persevere by the power of the Spirit, to overcome obstacles, to lay aside our sin and to press on towards the upward call of God that is found in Christ Jesus and Him alone. In His name we pray, amen.