FBC Morning Light – March 14, 2022

Faith Baptist Church

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Well, a good Monday morning to you. I hope you had a great weekend and the Lord blessed you as you gathered with God's people on the

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Lord's Day, went to church, learned something from God's Word, just enjoyed singing praises and worshiping the

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Lord together. That whole notion that I just expressed,

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I hope you enjoyed worshiping God together, actually comes out in today's

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Bible reading, and I'll get to that in just a minute. We're in Ezra chapters 5 and 6 today, and the first thing

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I wanted to point out is how Ezra 5 begins, the first couple of verses.

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God's people had really become neglectful of God's house. They had good excuses for it.

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They'd been prohibited from doing a rebuilding project and so forth of the temple.

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These are the people who came back from the Babylonian captivity. Remember, they were released, came back to build the temple.

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Started doing so, and then some enemies of theirs sent a letter to the king back home and said, you've got to get these people to stop this, because these are bad people, and Jerusalem has a bad history here.

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The king complied, and he sent a letter and told them to stop. So they stopped for a long time, but then when you couple what we read here in Ezra with the prophecies of Haggai and Zechariah, and especially

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Haggai. Haggai the prophet comes on the scene, and Ezra 5 .1 mentions that, that the

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Lord sent Haggai. When Haggai came on the scene, he rebuked the people because they had become very complacent.

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They'd actually taken materials that were supposed to be used in the temple, rebuilding the temple, and built their own homes.

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So they'd become complacent about serving the Lord and worshiping him and rebuilding the temple and giving honor to him as he deserved.

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So the prophets came, and they proclaimed this challenge to the people that they needed to get back to the work.

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How gracious is God to send his prophets, to send those who preach the word and challenge us with what's going on in our lives, challenge us with our complacency and our neglect, as well as our outright sin?

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I think most of us fit in the category, when we need to be confronted, of those in Ezra 5 .1

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and 2. They'd just become lackadaisical about things of the Lord, and they just stopped doing stuff that they needed to do.

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That complacency, they needed to be rattled out of that complacency. God in his grace and in his kindness sent these prophets,

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Haggai and Zechariah, to come and shake up the people, and they responded. Verses 1 and 2 tell us, they responded and responded well.

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So they started rebuilding, and that didn't go over too well with those who opposed the construction project.

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So they again sent letters to the king back home, and this time it was Darius, and said, they've got to stop doing this.

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But God's people also said, no, we have orders from the previous king to do this.

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Darius was challenged by the opposition to God's people back in Jerusalem to verify this.

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Is this really so? Notice how God, in his sovereignty, so works in the heart of Darius, that he finds the record that Cyrus initially issued, saying that people could go back and build the temple.

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When Darius found that, he said, Cyrus said it, good enough for Cyrus, good enough for me.

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He sent word back that, no, you need to let the people continue building and let this project, see this project to the end, and not only that, but give them the materials and the supplies and the money they need to finish this project, to get it done.

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It was quite a turn of events. Here's where I'm leading with all this, that ties into my opening comment about,

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I hope you enjoyed worshiping yesterday. At the end of chapter 6, after they had got back to work on this building, it says in verse 22, at the end of chapter 6, they completed the temple, they dedicated the temple, and in verse 22 it tells us, they kept the feast of unleavened bread seven days with joy.

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This is one of those annual festivals that were celebrated in ancient

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Israel. They did this with joy. But here's the next thing I want you to notice. It says, for the

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Lord made them joyful and turned the heart of the king toward them.

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The Lord did this. The Lord made them joyful. The Lord turned the heart of the king.

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What was it that they were so joyful about? They were joyful about the way the

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Lord had turned the heart of the king. They were joyful that they were able to go to God's house once again, that this temple was completed, and they were able to worship

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God together once again in the temple. They were thrilled with this.

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God made them joyful, and God turned the heart of the king.

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Both of those things are still possible and true today. It is

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God who will make you joyful in the worship of him, and it is

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God who can turn the heart of the king. Remember that point when you think about what's going on in our world and in our government and so on and so forth.

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God has his purposes for all this, and we don't understand it all, but in his time and in his way and in the right place, he will turn the heart of the king.

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He does so for the sake of his glory and for his worship and for the good of his people.

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Again, I say, I hope that you were able to gather with God's people yesterday and enjoyed worshiping

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God together, that God made you joyful in that worship.

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If you didn't find that to be true, then let me encourage you through the course of this week that you ask

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God to change your heart and to give you a heart of joy when you gather together.

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Enter into his gates with joy, the psalmist says, when you gather on the Lord's Day. I hope you'll do that.

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Our Father and our God, we do thank you today for the fact that you, in your grace, you send those to us to challenge us when we need it.

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We're thankful also, Father, that in your sovereignty you give us joyful hearts to worship and serve you, and you also turn the heart of the king.

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Bless these thoughts to our hearts today, we pray in Jesus' name and for his sake. Amen. Have a good rest of your