Ezra 6

Ezra 6: God’s Sovereign Rule Over History

Are in Ezra chapter six. Ezra chapter six, these are the words of God. Then Darius the king made a decree and search was made in Babylonia in the house of the archives where the documents were stored.

And in Ecbatana, the citadel that is in the province of Media, a scroll was found on which this was written, a record in the first year of Cyrus the king. Cyrus the king issued a decree concerning the house of God at Jerusalem.

Let the house be rebuilt, the place where sacrifices were offered and let its foundations be retained. Its height shall be 60 cubits and its breadth 60 cubits with three layers of great stones and one layer of timber.

Let the cost be paid from the royal treasury. And also let the gold and silver vessels of the house of God, which Nebuchadnezzar took out of the temple that is in Jerusalem and brought to Babylon be restored and brought back to the temple that is in Jerusalem.

Each to its place. You shall put them in the house of God. Now, therefore, Tatzani, governor of the province beyond the river, Shethar Bozani and your associates, the governors who are in the province beyond the river, keep away.

Let the work on this house of God alone. Let the governor of the Jews and the elders of the Jews rebuild this house of God on its site. Moreover, I make a decree regarding what you shall do for these elders of the Jews for rebuilding this house of God.

The cost is to be paid to these men in full and without delay from the royal revenue, the tribute of the province from beyond the river. And whatever is needed, bulls, rams, or sheep for burnt offerings to the God of heaven, wheat, salt, wine, or oil, as the priests at Jerusalem require, let that be given to them day by day without fail.

That they may offer pleasing sacrifices to the God of heaven and pray for the life of the king and his sons. Also, I shall make a decree that if anyone alters this edict, a beam shall be pulled out of his house and he shall be impaled on it.

And his house shall be made a dunghill. May the God who caused his name to dwell there overthrow any king or people who shall put out a hand to alter this or to destroy this house of God that is in Jerusalem.

I, Darius, make a decree. Let it be done with all diligence. Then, according to the word sent by Darius the king, Tantani, the governor of the province beyond the river, Shethar, Bozani, and their associates did with all diligence what Darius the king had ordered.

And the elders of the Jews built and prospered through the prophesying of Haggai the prophet and Zechariah the son of Iddo. They finished their building by decree of the God of Israel and by decree of Cyrus and Darius and Artaxerxes, king of Persia.

And this house was finished on the third day of the month of Adar in the sixth year of the reign of Darius the king. And the people of Israel, the priests and the Levites and the rest of the returned exiles celebrated the dedication of this house of God with joy.

They offered at the dedication of this house of God a hundred bulls, 200 rams, 400 lambs, and as a sin offering for all Israel, 12 male goats according to the number of the tribes of Israel. And they set the priests in their divisions and the Levites in their divisions for the service of God at Jerusalem as it is written in the book of Moses.

On the 14th day of the first month, the returned exiles kept the Passover for the priests and Levites had purified themselves together. All of them were clean. So they slaughtered the Passover lamb for all the returned exiles for their fellow priests and for themselves.

And it was eaten by the people of Israel who had returned from exile and also by everyone who had joined them and separated himself from the uncleanness of the peoples of the land to worship the Lord, the God of Israel.

And they kept the feast of unleavened bread seven days with joy, for the Lord had made them joyful and had turned the heart of the King of Assyria to them so that he aided them in the work of the house of God, the God of Israel.

God’s Sovereign Hand in the Decree of Darius

This is the word of the Lord. Lord God, thank you for this amazing chapter and this amazing book. Lord, thank you for your sovereign hand and your power to do your will whenever you want it. Thank you that you rule earth in the same way that you rule heaven.

You do whatever pleases you. Lord, we pray that we would understand who you are and what you're about more in this passage than we've ever understood before. In Jesus' name, amen. All right, so last week when we were in Ezra chapter five, we left off with the people of God responding to the preaching of the prophets of Haggai and Zechariah.

We talked about how those prophets delivered a message about repenting from their disobedience and responding to God in faith and obedience. We saw that they did respond and they responded very well and they began to work on the temple even though the government officials had told them to stop.

And if you remember when they were challenged by this, they still didn't stop. They continued to work and they petitioned the pagan king Darius. And they asked him, they said to search the archives to see if the original approval that they had from King Cyrus, if it was really valid.

So that brings us to chapter six where we see that Darius does in fact search the archives. What we find in chapter six is something we've talked about already before. And that is that God can work through pagan rulers, unbelievers, non-Jews, un-Christian, and he can still accomplish his will through those men here on earth.

So this is the kind of chapter I think we can sort of just read it and we understand what it says, but we can sort of miss the real miracle that God does because this is an easy to read chapter. It's just a narrative.

You don't really have to interpret too much. But I wanna take a second to really think about what happens here and really appreciate what has happened here. You see King Darius, like I said, he was not a Jewish king and he didn't have any obligation to listen to the Jewish elders petition to search the archives.

It's not like he didn't have anything better to do. I mean, he was a king of a huge empire. He had lots to do, but he decides to listen to them. He searches the records and I can't imagine this was like doing a Google search.

He had lots of different places where records were kept and they had to go through them page by page or scroll by scroll or whatever, but he does it and he takes this great effort and resources to search.

And then he actually finds the decree that they're talking about. Now he found it, but was Darius bound to this decree? Did he have to follow what King Cyrus had said? I don't think he was. I think he could have made a new decree.

He could have said the work had to stop, but he doesn't, he approves of it. Why is that? We'll find out in a moment. What I find especially amazing is that King Darius doesn't just passively approve, but actually he goes out of his way to help and support the building.

He demands that the local government, the one that was trying to stop them, he says, you guys are gonna pay for it. It's like Trump saying, you're gonna pay for the wall. He says paid in full without delay in case anyone misunderstands that he's deadly serious.

Why does he do that? We'll find out in a moment. But he doesn't actually even stop there. He doesn't just support them with decrees. He actually puts force behind it. He says that if anyone tries to alter this decree, he calls, first of all, he calls down a curse from God on them.

But also he says, just in case that doesn't work, we'll also execute you. And he even provides a very colorful, brutal sounding method of execution. Just in case anyone misunderstands it. Why does he go this far?

This is super overkill in my opinion. Like he could have just said, yeah, you know, leave the Jews alone, let them do whatever they're gonna do and just don't bother them. He could have just said that.

But no, he takes steps, he goes far. He says, we're gonna support this, we're gonna fund this, and we're gonna protect the people. We find out why in verse 14. This is what it says in verse 14. This is so amazing.

It says, they finished their building by decree of the God of Israel and by the decree of Cyrus and King Darius and Artaxerxes, the King of Persia. That's an absolutely amazing verse in my opinion. Do you catch the different aspects there?

First of all, the verse says that the building was finished by the decree of God, which is the God of Israel. Which is interesting. I think we can look back at the last five weeks and we can see, yes, God was definitely in this.

He was working through everybody to accomplish this mission. So the building was finished by the decree of God. But it goes on to say that it was also finished by the decree of Cyrus and Darius and Artaxerxes, which is very interesting.

You see, Cyrus and Darius did decree that the temple be built. And they have their own reasons for this and they have their own will and their desires. So they get some credit, of course. But their desires, their decree, their will was not the only one at play here.

Clearly God's will was as well. And the verse makes that explicit. Now, good Calvinists understand this as compatibilism. You see, man has a will, but that doesn't mean that God doesn't have a will in the very same actions.

So compatibilism means free will is compatible with God's will, compatibilism. So if I were to raise my hand like this, the question is, is it my will that made me do it or was it God's will that I raised my hand?

And the answer is yes. How that is possible, I do not know. How it works, I do not know. But this is a great verse to demonstrate that it is the case. And I admit that that's a very hard reality to grasp.

To drive the point home that the Hebrew and the tenses and the verb, all that stuff, it's the same when it talks about the will of, I'm sorry, the decree of God and the decree of Cyrus. And so it's saying these are one and the same.

It does not make the kings puppets or robots or anything like that. But rather, it establishes their choices in the framework of God accomplishing his own purposes. So you see, God's plan moves forward through the choices of every person to ever exist.

And Ezra gives us a very clear view into that. So we all have a will, of course, but God's will is freer than our will. And so the question becomes, why is all this happening? So my point has been throughout this whole sermon series that God works through rulers all the time, whether it's for good or for bad.

So every ruler, Barack Obama, Donald Trump, God's working through all of these men for various purposes. So if that's true, then that means that God doesn't always bless his people the way he does in Ezra chapter six.

So think about this, right? Like the whole reason that this temple had to be rebuilt according to God's will is because that it was destroyed according to God's will. King Nebuchadnezzar didn't just have this ability to work outside of God's plan.

No, God had worked through King Nebuchadnezzar, taken over the land, destroyed the temple, and that involved killing and capturing people. And so if my point is correct, then King Nebuchadnezzar, God was working through him, even when that bad stuff happens.

We can't just take the good from God. We also have to take the bad as well. So the question is, why does the bad stuff happen sometimes? And why is the good happening now in Ezra chapter six? This is a question that I think doesn't only apply to the book of Ezra, but it applies to our lives all the time.

Kingdoms rise, kingdoms fall, and God is behind all of it. The question is, is there a reason? Is there a rhyme or reason to it? Or is it just unpredictable and random? So God, he stirs up the heart of King Darius to support and defend the Jews building the temple.

Is there a reason? Or is it random? I suggest to you that it is not random, not even a little bit. I suggest to you that God is blessing the Israelites, the Jews, in Ezra chapter six, because of their obedience in Ezra chapter five.

Blessings and Curses in the Covenant of Grace

Now, I realize that might trigger you a little bit, and I understand that. So hear me out. I'm not talking about works-based righteousness or legalism or anything like that, because the reality is Israel never earned their standing with God, and Israel doesn't earn blessings from God on their own accord.

So that's not what I'm talking about. But what I am talking about is the structure of the covenant of grace that the nation of Israel received from God. So let's check out some stuff from Deuteronomy.

We've already read together a verse, but we'll read a few different ones. Deuteronomy chapter 11, God presents his law to the people. And here's how he describes what he's laying out here. He says in Deuteronomy 11, verse six, he says, "'See, I am setting before you today a blessing and a curse, "'the blessing if you obey the commandments "'of the Lord your God, which I command you today, "'and the curse if you do not obey the commandments "'of the Lord your God.

"'But turn aside from the way that I am commanding you today "'to go after gods that you have not known.'". Now, I'll stop reading right there for a moment, but I know that this idea can make people uncomfortable.

Like how does this, what I just read, how does that fit with grace? That's the question. And I think that question causes many people to misunderstand the Old Testament. I think a lot of people think of the Old Testament as a covenant of works.

And then the New Testament is the one that's of grace. But I don't think that's the way it is at all. When you're reading the Old Testament and Deuteronomy in particular, you need to remember one critical thing.

And that is that God gives this law to Israel after he already saves them and delivers them from Egypt. And I think you gotta think of your own salvation as a sort of exodus. That's what the New Testament calls it.

And so it's not like we clean up our act and then we get saved. No, we get saved. God saves us. And then and only then does he start to clean up our act. And yes, God is the one who cleans up our act.

We can only be made better by the work of the Holy Spirit. But the point is that all of this stuff about blessings for obedience and curses for disobedience, this has to fit in with grace because it was given after God showed grace to Israel.

And so I hope you follow that. So all this stuff, I know some people think it might sound sort of works-based righteousness, but it isn't, it comes after grace. So let's go into a little bit further with Deuteronomy.

Deuteronomy chapter 28 talks about the blessings that come from obedience. It says, blessed you shall be in your city. Blessed shall you be in the field. Blessed shall the fruit of your womb and the fruit of the ground and the fruit of your cattle, the increase of your herds and the young of your flock.

Blessed shall be your basket and your kneading bowl. Blessed shall you be when you come in and blessed shall you be when you go out. The Lord will cause your enemies who rise against you to be defeated before you.

They shall come out against you one way and flee before you seven ways. The Lord will command the blessing on you in your barns and in all that you undertake. And he will bless you in the land that the Lord your God has given you.

The Lord will establish you as a people holy to himself as he has sworn to you. If you keep the commandments of the Lord your God and walk in his ways. And all the peoples of the earth shall see that you are called by the name of the Lord and they shall be afraid of you.

And the Lord will make you abound in prosperity. In the fruit of your womb and in the fruit of your livestock and in the fruit of your ground. Within the land that the Lord swore to your fathers to give you.

The Lord will open to you his good treasury. The heavens to give the rain to your land and its season and to bless all the work of your hands. And you shall lend to many nations that you shall not borrow.

And the Lord will make you the head and not the tail and you shall go only up and not down. If you obey the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you today, be careful to do them and if you do not turn aside from any of the words that I command you today, to the right or to the left, to go after other gods to serve them.

That sounds pretty good. And this isn't prosperity gospel nonsense. I know people twist this. It's not works righteousness. It's not earning your salvation, but this is scripture. We got to deal with it.

This is part of the covenant of grace. So again, after God saves Israel. So we got to keep that in mind. This is in effect even today. That's my claim. This is only half the story, of course. I could go on and read about the curses, but just maybe the best way to think of the curses is just the opposite of the blessings I just read you.

See, this is why God responds to Israel's obedience to the prophets Haggai and Zechariah. See, the first time around people come and they oppose the building of the temple and they're able to stop Israel, right?

So they bring forces and they say, stop building and Israel says, they're scared and they stop. This time around, the people are obedient and they say, stop, the people come up against Israel. They say, stop, and Israel says, no, and they back down.

God's blessing the people for this obedience. And so they obeyed Haggai, they obeyed Zechariah. They're giving the word of the Lord and they get a blessing in response as it is written. So what do we make of this today?

Does this apply to us today? Here's the thing. If you were to obey God's law and you were an unbeliever, let's say, the reality is you would be in a better position than if you don't. The Bible all over the place talks about pagans obeying the law and God doesn't come in with destruction because of it.

But think about it logically, it's not magic, right? Chances are, if you don't steal, you don't commit adultery, you don't covet, chances are you're gonna have an easier life. Not always, but chances are.

It's not magic, it's just God made the world to work that way. If you go around stealing from people, you're gonna have a rough time. It's just that simple. But if you're a believer, we know that our salvation doesn't depend on our performance.

We know that. But how do we apply what we've just read about blessings and curses? And I think what we do as Christians is we apply it prophetically. This is what we do. We look at these blessings and curses, we look at God's law, and I think we can warn people and plead with people and beg people of our culture to take the concept of blessing and curses seriously.

Here's the thing, America is not a unique, special nation in the sense that it's a kingdom like any others. It rises and it falls. It rises and it falls. And so that's how we preach in this culture today.

This is all we do. It's not, we don't have to have magical insight into things to know what to preach to the culture. So what we do is we look at the law of God and we see, okay, are the people doing this?

Is there obedience in general? Or are the people not doing this? Is there disobedience in general? And then based on that, we warn or we offer hope. You see, based on that, we offer salvation and grace.

Based on what we see in the culture, the obedience or the disobedience, we preach repentance in the face of judgment. That's how it applies today. So it would sound something like this. The question that we need to ask, what do we want?

Do we want death or do we want life? That's the choice that's before us all. Do we want peace or do we want calamity? That's the question. Do we want prosperity or do we want economic collapse? That's the options that we have.

Basically, it's do you want blessings or do you want curses? And so if I run down the list in my mind and I think, does my nation apply God's law in its dealings? In general, do we not steal? Do we not kill?

Do we not commit adultery? Now, if I'm being honest, I can't think of a single one that I would say that our nation as a whole embraces. And so that's the question. If our government is disobeying God, then we need to preach the same message that every prophet ever preached in the Bible.

It's the same message that Noah preached. It's the same message that Moses preached. Isaiah, Jeremiah, Haggai, Zechariah, John the Baptist, Paul, and even Jesus Christ himself preached the same message.

And the message is repent or perish. And all they were doing, even Christ himself, all he was doing was applying the law and saying, okay, well, here's the blessings and here's the curses and let's apply it to this situation.

And when he did that, he preached repentance and faith. So in the short term, this is the reality that we face as Americans. In the short term, things don't look good. If we apply the concept of blessing and curses for us, would we get peace in the future or would we get calamity?

What about for financial prosperity? If we apply the blessings and curses, are we gonna have financial prosperity? We're gonna have economic collapse in the future. It's blessings and curses. And it applied to nations in the Old Testament, it applies to nations in the New Testament.

So that's why we warn, that's why we beg and we plead and we ask people to prepare for the coming judgment because we can be sure that judgment is coming unless God grants repentance on a massive scale and there's only one way that that happens and that's if we preach grace and repentance and faith.

And the thing is, when I say that, in my mind, I think it could happen, but in my heart, I don't think it could happen. But the truth is, it has happened before. God sent Jonah to preach repentance and guess what?

They did for a time, but that would be an amazing thing. Imagine if the church in America preached repentance and it actually repented. I say it as a whole, the nation as a whole. That would be amazing.

But even if they don't repent, right? Even if judgment does eventually come, which it will unless there's repentance, the story doesn't end there because the Jews in Ezra chapter six, they had been through that period, right?

Like Israel had come through a period where judgment had happened and the church will always come through those periods. America may fall, but the church goes on. There's always a remnant and the remnant will survive.

And eventually the people of the land will repent and blessings and peace and prosperity will return like they do in Ezra chapter six. And it will be a miracle just like it is in Ezra chapter six and so we should prepare because when we get through it, I hope that we'll do what Israel does because at the end of our chapter this morning, Israel worships.

The last part of the chapter, we see that the Jews and even some of the Gentiles, it says, even some of the people who decided to separate from the pagan culture around them. They keep the Passover. The first Passover in 70 years.

That is amazing. I was thinking about that this morning. Like imagine if there was a period where the church doesn't do communion for 70 years. That would be ridiculous. I can't even imagine a situation like that, but they worship.

Listen to this. This is verse 21. It says, talking about the Passover, it says, it was eaten by the people of Israel who had returned from exile and also by everyone who had joined them and separated himself from the uncleanness of the peoples of the land to worship the Lord, the God of Israel.

And they kept the Feast of Unleavened Bread seven days with joy for the Lord had made them joyful and had turned the heart of the King of Assyria to them so that he aided them in the work of the house of God, the God of Israel.

It's amazing. It's amazing. So my prayer is that God would grant the nation repentance and faith. My prayer is that as we saw in the last chapter that the eye of God would be on his people and he would grant them peace and prosperity and blessings.

And further, my prayer is that we would respond to the blessings with faith and with worship. Let's pray. Lord God, we thank you so much for your word and how clear it is. I think that sometimes the clarity of your word can be a bit scary, but let us learn to trust you, God.

Let us learn to trust you. I pray, God, that you would preserve your remnant through the coming periods of turmoil and upheaval, God. I pray that we would not be afraid. But Lord, I ultimately pray that it doesn't happen because I pray that the nation would repent, would follow you, would follow Christ the King, God.

We know it's happened before and we may not be able to understand how it could happen again, but we trust you that it could, Lord. So please, we ask you to grant repentance to your people. Lord, thank you for this example of you working through this Old Testament pagan king, God, this king who is, we have to assume he was a brutal guy because to be a king back in those times, you basically had to be.

But for some reason, he just wants to help. Makes no sense. I can't think of the most brutal leader that I can think of and just think like one day, he says, yeah, let's help the church. Let's provide them money and let's protect them.

I just can't imagine it happening, but here it is happening. God, we pray that you would give us confidence and faith and that we would trust you, Lord. Thank you so much for your mercy and for your grace and for your protection in Jesus' name.