10/14/18 Ezra 4

Here I Stand Theology

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What we're going to do first is just read the fourth chapter in your hearing. And the bulk of the exposition, the bulk of the message is going to be from verses 1 through 5 in this fourth chapter.

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Giving honor and credence to the Word of God, we're going to read the entire chapter and preach on those first five verses there.

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But this morning the Word of God says this, Ezra chapter 4 and verse 1, Now when the adversaries of Judah and Benjamin heard that the descendants of the captivity were building the temple of the

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Lord God of Israel, they came to Zerubbabel and the heads of the father's houses and said to them,

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Let us build with you for we seek your God as you do.

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And we have sacrificed to him since the days of Esarhaddon king of Assyria who brought us here.

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But Zerubbabel and Joshua and the rest of the heads of the father's houses of Israel said to them,

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You may do nothing with us to build a house for our God, but we alone will build to the

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Lord God of Israel as King Cyrus the king of Persia has commanded us. Then the people of the land tried to discourage the people of Judah.

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They troubled them in the building and hired counselors against them to frustrate their purpose all the days of Cyrus king of Persia even until the reign of King Darius of Persia.

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In the reign of Ahasuerus, in the beginning of his reign, they wrote an accusation against the inhabitants of Judah and Jerusalem.

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In the days of Artaxerxes also, Bishlom, Midradeth, Tabal and the rest of their companions wrote to Artaxerxes king of Persia and the letter was written in Aramaic script and translated into the

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Aramaic language. Rehum the commander and Shemshah the scribe wrote a letter against Jerusalem to King Artaxerxes in this fashion.

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The letter read from Rehum the commander, Shemshah the scribe and the rest of their companions, representatives of the

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Danites and the Apharsactites, the Tarpalites, the people of Persia and Erech and Babylon and Shushan and Dehavites, the

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Elamites and the rest of the nations whom the great and noble Osnapper took captive and settled in the cities of Samaria and the remainder beyond the river and so forth.

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This is a copy of the letter they sent him to King Artaxerxes from your servants, the men of the region beyond the river and so forth.

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Let it be known to the king that the Jews who came up from Jerusalem have come to us at Jerusalem and are building the rebellious and evil city and are finishing its walls and repairing its foundations.

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Let it now be known to the king that if this city is built and the walls completed, they will not pay tax, tribute or custom and the king's treasury will be diminished.

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Now because we received support from the palace, it was not proper for us to see the king's dishonor.

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Therefore we have sent and informed the king that search may be made in the book of the records of your fathers and you will find in the book of the records and know that this city is a rebellious city, harmful to kings and provinces and that they have incited sedition within the city in former times for which cause this city was destroyed.

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We informed the king that if this city is rebuilt and its walls are completed, the result will be that you will have no dominion beyond the river.

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The king sent an answer. His answer was to re -hunt the commander, Shimshah the scribe and the rest of their companions who dwell in Samaria and to the remainder who are beyond the river, peace and so forth.

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The letter which you sent to us has been clearly read before me and I gave the command and the search has been made and it was found that this city in former times has revolted against kings and rebellion and sedition have been fostered in it.

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There have also been mighty kings over Jerusalem who have ruled over all the region beyond the river and tax, tribute and custom were paid to them.

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Now give the command to make these men cease that this city may not be built until the command is given by me.

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Now when the copy... Oh wait, take heed that you do not fail to do this.

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Why should damage increase to the herd of the kings? Now when the copy of King Artaxerxes' letter was read before him, before re -hunt

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Shimshah the scribe and their companions, they went up in haste to Jerusalem against the

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Jews and by force of arms made them cease. Thus the work of the house of God which is at Jerusalem ceased and it was discontinued until the second year of the reign of Darius, king of Persia.

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Let's pray. Lord, I just want to ask you to help us communicate and make sense of your word today.

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Holy Spirit, we'd ask that you would teach us the ways of righteousness and truth, convict us of sin, righteousness and judgment of who you are, dear

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God, in the word. And Lord, my prayer would be that of the psalmist this morning, that the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart would be acceptable in your sight.

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For it is in Jesus' name I pray. Amen and amen. Very quickly here,

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I'm going to go over just a couple of things to give you kind of the big picture before we focus in on verses 1 through 5 here.

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There's a lot that goes on in this chapter. Remember, as we shared with you before, that this did not happen in a moment of time, but years upon years, possibly 125 to maybe,

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I think I have in one place up to over, up to 255 years.

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Those exact dates aren't necessarily known, but we do know that there was a period of time that went by.

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And we can know this because of what we have just in this text here today of the kings that were listed.

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We read of Cyrus, king of Persia. Cyrus, king of Persia, he reigned over Babylon from somewhere about the year 550

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BC to 522 BC and around 538

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BC. Remember, time kind of counts down before Christ, so we go backwards in our dates, but the math is still the same.

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Around 538 BC, which would be about 12 years after he began to reign, 538

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BC, King Cyrus lets the children of Israel, having been moved by God, he lets the children of Israel out of captivity, sends them back to Jerusalem to rebuild the house of God based upon the sovereignty and the providence of God himself.

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We see the next king that reigned after King Cyrus was

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King Darius. Darius reigned from around 522 BC to around 486

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BC. And I know these numbers don't seem like they're much, but it gives us dates, it gives us times, it gives us a perspective of where we are, it gives us context of the time that the children of Israel went under this persecution, desiring to rebuild the house of God.

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So Darius reigned from about 522 to around 486. Around 486,

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Ahasuerus. We hear Ahasuerus mentioned in this text. Ahasuerus reigned from around 486 to about 465.

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So probably for about 20 years he reigned. And then Artaxerxes reigned from around 465 to 424.

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Now, what's important about this, we'll notice here early in this text, in these early verses, we see that the people suffered even from the days of Cyrus, king of Persia.

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So Cyrus let them out of Babylonian captivity around 538. And they suffered until the second year of King Darius, which was likely around 522.

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It's likely been about 18 years just in that chunk of time that has passed that the work of God was challenged on every hand.

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They had to fight tooth and nail. Nehemiah's account is the parallel account of Ezra's account.

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So if you've ever read Nehemiah, Nehemiah is basically about God's people rebuilding up those broken down walls.

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In Jerusalem, Ezra's account is primarily the rebuilding of the temple. Remember last week, what was the first thing that the children of Israel set to rebuild?

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Anybody remember? The altar, right? They rebuilt the altar on its original base, on its original foundation.

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Something else that's important to remember and to give us perspective and context, that it wasn't just a hop, skip, and a jump for Israel to leave

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Babylon and go back to Jerusalem. It was about 900 miles. And imagine trying for a group of about 50 ,000 people to be moving a convoy or a caravan together.

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It probably took them about four months or so, historians say, to get from Babylon to Jerusalem.

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And then the work of settling in went on. And all this time, remembering and keeping in mind this truth, that they were fought on every hand on doing the work of God.

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Now the cities around about Jerusalem were cities that basically, because of Babylonian rule,

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Babylonians, they did something that was very smart from an enemy perspective.

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What they did, they populated the cities that they took over. They always put some of their own people in the cities that they took over so that the

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Babylonian practices would be carried on. So that this foolishness of worshipping the true and the living

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God might not take hold too much. So people might not get too big a grip on the

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Lord, so to speak. I know it's the Lord that has His grip on us. But just for the sake of speech, I'm going to put it that way.

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So I want you to keep in mind this reality, this perspective, when we consider what's going on, the amount of time that has passed.

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What Ezra does in this chapter is he begins by telling us in verses 1 -5 what's going on at the moment, how they were pressed, even having

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Cyrus' approval of leaving Babylon and going to Jerusalem. They were fought tooth and nail.

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They were fought tooth and nail in the next king's reign, even in Darius' reign.

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And in the midst of this chapter, having read that letter to you, I encourage you to look at that letter sometime throughout the week.

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You'll see that the letter basically was playing on King Artaxerxes' pride.

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They were telling Artaxerxes, Artaxerxes, if you let this stuff go on, if you let the children of Israel rebuild the house of God, if you let them continue worshipping the true and the living

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God, what's going to happen is that they're not going to love you, they're not going to pay tribute to you, and you basically aren't going to have the rule that a king deserves to have.

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And Artaxerxes, as most kings do, he allowed that to play on his pride, and he thought to himself,

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I'll look at the records, I'll look at the history, and I'll see what's said, and I'll see what's done.

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And remembering this was probably even, this issue with Artaxerxes went on after King Darius.

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So we have a picture of present, we have a painting of what's, a historical account of what happened in the future, that it was an ongoing challenge that they faced.

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And then in the last verse, in that 24th verse, we see Ezra bringing it all back to us, and he says,

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Thus the work of the house of God which is at Jerusalem ceased, and it was discontinued until the second year of the reign of King Darius.

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So for about 18 years or so, the work was ceased, even in Cyrus' time, the work was ceased later on, and then the author brings us back to King Darius' time, where the work began, because we'll see next week, when we read in chapter 5, how that Darius looked into things, and how

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Darius allowed the children of Israel to go back to work on rebuilding the house of God.

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But what we want to focus on today primarily is this, is these first five verses in this chapter, because what we're going to see here is a picture of how that the children of Israel refused to compromise with the world.

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Again, I'll make that distinction. There is a difference between God's people and the world.

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And you may say, what is the difference? God's people have been redeemed by the grace of God.

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God's people's names are written in the Lamb's book of life. God's people have hope of eternal life.

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God's people have heaven as our promise, and the lost has nothing but hell as their promise.

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So there is a difference between the world and the church. There is a difference between the child of God and children of the devil.

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Don't buy into the slide of tongue that so many people use.

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Oh, we're all God's children. Jesus begged to differ. He told the Pharisees, He said, you are of your father, the devil.

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There is a difference. There is a distinction. So in this chapter, let's look in here, and I know that was a lot of introduction, but I really feel like it's very important as our cross -reference for these verses today.

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We're going to be going over to 2 Kings chapter 17 and verse 24, if you want to go ahead and mark your place or write that reference down.

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Because that passage of Scripture, because the Scripture interprets the Scripture, we're going to be able to see the circumstance at the time of what we're reading is going on.

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We're going to be able to understand it in its fullness and in its context. 2 Kings chapter 17, 24 through 21.

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Remembering this, the book of Ezra is a book of hope. It's a book of God's people being delivered.

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It is all of those things. But my friends, in these verses, we're going to see how the children of God refuse to compromise with the world.

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And our application for today and in today's time is this, that God has not changed.

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Amen? God is the same. God's people are called to worship God in the same way, to worship

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Him and to love Him with all our hearts, with all our soul, with all our mind and with all our strength.

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Israel was sold into Babylonian captivity because of their disobedience unto the

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Lord. Because they did not heed the word of God. So verse 1, the adversaries of Judah and Benjamin heard the descendants of the captivity were building the temple of the

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Lord God of Israel. Right there, we see that they were adversaries. So they were adversaries in verse 1.

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They came to Zerubbabel. Zerubbabel was the governor. He was kind of like the head of the government of the children of Israel here in the captivity release and the heads of the father's houses.

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And he said to them, let us build with you. Notice very closely what they say.

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Let us build with you for we seek your God as you do.

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Notice their statement there. It's a very compromising statement when we understand what the word of God teaches.

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There are a great many in our day and in our time, a great many who want to join in affinity with the church.

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They want to link arm in arm with the church while they have one foot in the world and one foot in the church.

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My friends, Jesus does not call us to have one foot in the world and one foot in the church. He calls us to be all in.

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That being said, notice, they said, let us build with you for we seek your God as you do.

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And we have sacrificed to him since the days of Esarhaddon, king of Assyria, who brought us here.

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Remember, I shared with you historically what the Babylonians did. They populated those cities that they took over.

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They brought in false religion. They brought in the worship of false gods.

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They brought in the worship of idols. They brought in all of these things. But these people that are coming to them are telling them, we worship

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God as you do and we have sacrificed to him since the days of Esarhaddon.

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It very likely was probably about 100 to 125 years before that, that Esarhaddon had been king and Esarhaddon brought in these practices.

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And we're going to read about those practices in 2 Kings. But as we move along, verse 1 through 4, we see that the adversaries of Judah and Benjamin were present at the time of their return.

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And until Christ returns and sets up his kingdom on this earth, there will be adversaries to the work.

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But be certain that one day, according to the scriptures, I wrote this down as a reminder to myself, one day, according to the scriptures, that adversary, by the way, in the

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New Testament, the apostle Paul taught believers who our adversary is. Our adversary is the devil, who roams about as a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour.

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But one day, according to the scriptures, that enemy will be destroyed. He will be destroyed.

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For the present though, we must be on guard against him, as we're taught in the New Testament, knowing and we must trust and we must hold and we must cling to our great

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God because he is faithful. Faithfulness based upon the great faithfulness of God is what we see demonstrated here in this text of scripture.

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We see from beginning to the end how God has always been faithful and true to his word.

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Preacher, you say that every week. You use that term, that phrase, I use it every week. And I do it intentionally.

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Because, friends, what I want you to get out of these messages is this, that God is faithful and true.

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That his mercy endures forever. That the word of God is something that you can cling to because there is nothing else that is worth anything in this world.

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So, going on, know this, that their faithfulness was based upon the faithfulness of God.

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If we're going to have faith in God, it's going to be because of the faith that he gives unto us by demonstrating his justice and his mercy forever.

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He is just in all things that he does. There's a song, I believe it was written back in 1923.

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Thomas Chisholm wrote the song. Some of you probably know it. It's a hymn. But it reminds us the history of this hymn.

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Great is thy faithfulness. Thomas Chisholm who wrote that hymn. He wrote it and his intention was not so that people would just observe the sovereignty and the majesty and the faithfulness of God in the spectacular things that we read about in the scriptures.

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But that we might recognize that he is sovereign even over the seemingly ordinary things in all of our lives.

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He wrote the words to this song. The song says this. Great is thy faithfulness, O God my

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Father. There is no shadow of turning with thee. Thou changest not, thy compassions they fail not.

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As thou hast been, thou forever will be. Summer and winter and springtime and harvest.

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Sun, moon, and stars above in their courses. Join with all nature in manifold witness to thy great faithfulness, mercy, and love.

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Pardon for sin and peace that endureth. Thine own dear presence to cheer and to guide.

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Strength for the day and bright hope for tomorrow. Blessing all mine with ten thousand aside.

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Great is thy faithfulness. Great is thy faithfulness.

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Morning by morning, new mercies I see. All I have needed, thy hand hath provided.

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Great is thy faithfulness, Lord unto me. Hallelujah for the faithfulness of God.

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And so moving along here we see the unflinching faith. Now to some it may have seemed a harsh response.

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And to many our responses may seem somewhat harsh and overly direct today.

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But friend we live in a day and a time where you need to be direct. You need to be clear. There doesn't need to be ambiguity in what we believe and what we hold to concerning the word of God.

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Because the world will take and mix everything together as we will see. Maybe that is exactly what happened with the children of Israel.

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So we see an unflinching faith. A faith that is not based upon circumstances being in their favor.

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No we see a faith that despite their circumstances that says we will not compromise with the world.

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And we will not work with the world to accomplish what God has intended. And what

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God has intended to be accomplished according to His standard and by His means.

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And I say that intentionally today. There are right ways of worshipping God. And we ought to find those in the scripture.

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Amen. Friends God had set up for years and years all of history until Jesus Christ came.

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And fulfilled the types and the shadows that God set up in the Old Testament. Until that time

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God intended to be worshipped in the way that He prescribed. He had the

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Ark of the Covenant that He had given to the children of Israel. The Ark at one point in time had been taken away.

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The children of Israel got it back. They were making their way back to Jerusalem with the Ark of the

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Covenant. The Ark of the Covenant which symbolized the presence and the power of God was to be carried a certain way.

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It had rods on either side. It was to be carried with sticks through those rods. It was to be carried in that manner.

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But the children of Israel were bringing the Ark back to Jerusalem at one point in time after having had it taken away.

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They were bringing the Ark back. And they had the Ark on what the scripture refers to.

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One version, I believe it is the King James Version, refers to as a new cart. And they were rolling the

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Ark of the Covenant back to Jerusalem. The wheel of that cart fell off.

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The Ark began to fall. And a fellow named Uzzah, as probably a knee -jerk response, when you see something falling, what do you do,

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Debbie? Do you try to grab it or do you just watch it? Well, the normal thing is to try to grab it.

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He tried to grab the Ark. And the Bible says the Lord killed him.

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Because the Ark was not meant to be handled with hands. In the first place, it had not been intentioned to be pushed around on a cart, but to be carried as God has prescribed.

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So the scripture is very clear in some of these things. So we go on here.

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Our text today will see that Zerubbabel and Joshua, as well as the heads of the tribes, they were in absolute agreement.

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Notice their statement here. They were in absolute agreement in their statement to the people of the cities around about them, their adversaries.

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There was no confusion. There was no mixed signals that they were giving. So we see this.

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1978, I want to say this, too, as we get ready to go into 2 Kings here. But in 1978,

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Vance Havner. Kenny mentioned Vance Havner. And again, I'm so thankful how the Lord has worked things together today.

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Kenny, the Sunday school lesson, your references, the reference we're going to be using today, even your mention of Vance Havner, some would say, well, you get tired of hearing it.

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I don't think anybody gets tired of hearing Vance Havner quoted. He was a good preacher.

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But in 1978, Vance Havner preached the sermon called Getting Used to the Dark, in which he preached against compromising with the world, which is why

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Zerubbabel and Joshua refused the people's offer because they refused to compromise with the world.

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Havner said this in his sermon. He said, men who dwell too long in darkness fancy the day is dawning.

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We call broad -minded tolerance what is really peaceful coexistence with evil. It is an effort to establish communion between light and darkness, a concord between Christ and Belal.

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This condition extends into the religious world. Keep in mind, this is 1978 he's writing this.

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This condition extends into the religious world and even into evangelical Christianity.

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It is possible to fraternize with unbelievers until the false doctrine becomes less and less objectionable.

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We come to terms with it and would incorporate it into the fellowship of truth. We begin by opening doors to borderline sects who believe almost as we do.

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Sound familiar, like from the text? Others find overtures from Rome attractive, talking about the

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Roman Catholic Church. Still others would make a crazy quilt of world religions, a syncretism of all the best in all the faith.

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Syncretism, Havner said, is only a big word for hash. Now, Havner went on to say this.

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He said, I don't eat hash at home because I know what's in it. And I don't eat a hash away when

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I'm away from home because I don't know what's in it. So he says, syncretism is basically just a big word for hash.

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These theological chefs who are busy mixing mulligan stew think the darkness is lifting.

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The truth is, they're merely getting used to the dark. And friends, that's the condition of the church today.

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Making a modern application here for the sake of communication. That's the condition of the church today.

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The church has gotten so used to the dark and has become such a syncretism of faiths.

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And until we get to and in the Word of God, and not just to and in the

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Word of God in a light sense, but in a very real and deep study of what

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God has said in His Word, the church is going to continue. And we are not called to be like the world.

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The world is not like the church and the church is not like the world. It's like when you were a kid and you saw those pictures.

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What is unlike about these two images? One's redeemed.

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One's lost. God is holy.

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Man is sinful. There is no comparison between the two.

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So let's look at 2 Kings. Because remember, Zerubbabel Joshua told him,

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You may do nothing with us to build a house for our God, but we alone will build a house to our

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God. Why did they say that? The why did they say that is what we are going to look at here in 2

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Kings. Why was their answer so stern? 2

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Kings chapter 17 beginning in verse 24. Then the king of Assyria, which is

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Esarhaddon at the time. The king of Assyria brought people from Babylon, Kuta, Eva, Hamath, and from Sabaphim, and placed them in the cities of Samaria instead of the children of Israel.

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And they took possession of Samaria and dwelt in its cities. And it was so at the beginning of their dwelling there that they did not fear the

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Lord. Therefore the Lord sent lions among them, which killed some of them.

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So they spoke to the king of Assyria, Esarhaddon. They spoke to king of Assyria, saying,

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The nations whom you have removed and placed in the cities of Samaria do not know the rituals of the

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God of the land. Therefore he has sent lions among them, and indeed they are killing them because they do not know the rituals, they use this term again, of the

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God of the land. Then the king of Assyria commanded, saying, Send there one of the priests whom you brought from there.

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Let him go and dwell there, and let him teach them the rituals of the God of the land.

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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

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Lord. So to stop there, to gather ourselves, to gather our bearings, the king of Assyria, Esarhaddon, was sent word from the people of the land, because the people did not fear

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God, they did not know how to practice worship of the true and the living God, that God sent, because they were idolaters,

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God sent lions in among them to kill them. And having fear for their own lives, they sent word to king of Assyria, Esarhaddon, that king

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Esarhaddon might send them somebody to give them some instruction on how to rightly worship the true and the living

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God. That was their thing. In one sense, it is very much like a, it was like a,

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I don't know how to phrase it, it was just like a hodgepodge of supernatural superstition, is what it was.

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They thought, well, we got to make sure we worship this God. In the New Testament, we have the parallel of Acts 17, where the whole city was given over to idolatry.

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They had idols to anything and everything, and they were so superstitious, they made an idol to an unknown

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God. The more things change, the more they stay the same. People are the same throughout history.

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And so they asked for Esarhaddon to send somebody. Esarhaddon sent one priest to the city to teach them that they should fear the

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Lord. And then in verse 28 or 29 there, notice, However, every nation continued to make gods of its own and put them in the shrines on the high places which the

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Samaritans had made. Every nation in the cities where they dwelt. The men of Babylon made

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Sukkoth -binoth, the men of Kuth made Nergal, the men of Hamath made Ashima, the

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Avites made Nebaz and Tartak, and the Sivarvites burned their children in fire to a

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Dremelech and a Nemelech, the gods of Sepharvain. So they, listen, they feared the

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Lord, and from every class they appointed for themselves priests of the high places who sacrificed for them in the shrines of the high places.

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If you know anything about the commandments and what God says, Thou shalt have no other gods before me, does it sound like they were truly worshipping the true and the living

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God? No, they still had shrines, they still had the high places, they still had the idols, they still had the priests to worship the idols, but what they were doing was blending, they figured, well, we've got a priest that's teaching us the truth, we'll do what the priest says, and we'll do what we want to do.

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They feared the Lord, verse 33, they feared the Lord, yet served their own gods, according to the rituals of the nations from among whom they were carried away.

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Verse 34, To this day, they continue practicing the former rituals.

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They do not fear the Lord, nor do they follow their statutes or their ordinances, or the law and commandment which the

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Lord had commanded the children of Jacob, whom he named Israel, with whom the

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Lord had made a covenant and charged them, saying, You shall not fear other gods, nor bow down to them, nor serve them, nor sacrifice to them, but the

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Lord who brought you up from the land of Egypt with great power and an outstretched arm, him you shall fear, him you shall worship, and to him you shall offer sacrifice.

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Meaning it was a singular worship, it was a singular sacrifice as prescribed in God's law.

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And the statutes, verse 37, the ordinances, the law, the commandments, which he wrote for you, you shall be careful to observe for a little while, forever.

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You shall not fear other gods, and the covenant that I have made with you, says the

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Lord, you shall not forget, nor shall you fear other gods. But the

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Lord your God you shall fear, and he will deliver you from the hand of all your enemies.

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However, they did not obey, but they followed their former rituals.

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So these nations feared the Lord, yet served their carved images.

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Also their children and their children's children have continued doing as their fathers did even to this day.

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Now, knowing what went on, why, what was taking place in the lives of those who came to Zerubbabel and to Joshua, can you get a little bit clearer picture and can we move beyond the niceties and the formalities of saying, well, sometimes you just got to nod your head and go on, but sometimes you've got to speak up and sound out and tell people the truth about what the

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Word of God says. There's a time for all things. And what we read here back in Ezra, what we're reading here in Ezra, it was a time for them to be straight to the point.

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Straight to the point. The people told them, oh, we worship your God just as you do.

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I don't think so, Buster Brown. I don't think so, Tim. Right?

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We worship God as you do and we have sacrificed to Him. Friends, they were just like it is today.

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People think because they go through the motions, because they perform the rituals, because they've gone through the rites, because they prayed the prayer, because they've signed their name, because they've been baptized, and even because they're regular in their church attendance that they're in all the way.

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But friend, it takes more than that to be saved. Salvation is by grace through faith alone, not in works, lest any man should boast.

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That's the glory of Jesus Christ. Our hope and our glory, the beauty of why worship never gets old to me, is because, friends, the worship of Jesus Christ is eternal.

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Because the work of Jesus Christ is eternal. Ten years, fifteen years from now, if I live that long,

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I'm not going to be able to say, Whoa, I'm glad I'm saved because of what I did back in March 1987.

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I'm going to say the same thing I'm saying today. Whoa, I'm glad I'm saved because of what

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Jesus did. Oh, Calvary! They depended on their works.

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Works won't get you to heaven. We've sacrificed to Him.

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And we've done it since the days of Easter. We've been doing this for 125 years. You think that ought to count for something?

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No, it doesn't. It doesn't matter how long you've been in church. It doesn't matter if you've heard the gospel preached ten thousand times until the

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Holy Spirit regenerates you and makes you a new creature. You're still just as lost as you've ever been.

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But when He does, hallelujah, there's a change. Hallelujah. Zerubbabel and Joshua and the rest of the heads of the fathers' houses said to them, you may do nothing with us.

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Uh -uh. No. No. Nehemiah, remember

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Nehemiah is the parallel account to Ezra. The same thing happened. They came and they said, we want to join with you in the work.

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And they said, you have no part nor lot in this matter with us. There is nothing that we have in common.

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Everything that we have, the only thing we have in common is the sin that separates us from a holy

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God. But praise God, what we can say today that they couldn't say then is this, even though they believe by faith, the difference between us and those that are lost is this, that we have been forgiven.

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How about you today? Are you saved? You must be born again by the work of the

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Holy Spirit of God in your life doing a supernatural work of salvation. But when you get saved, friend, let me tell you something, there is not going to be any doubt about it that you have been redeemed.

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They said, no, you may do nothing with us to build a house for our God, but we alone will build to the

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Lord God of Israel as King Cyrus, the king of Persia, has commanded us. Then the people of the land, the

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Scripture says, tried to discourage the people of Judah. They troubled them in building.

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They hired counselors against them to frustrate their purpose all the days of Cyrus, king of Persia, even until the reign of King Darius.

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Eighteen or so years passed, thought tooth and nail.

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Did they give up? We know they didn't because we have the Word of God. 125 years passed through the four kings,

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Cyrus, Darius, Osiris, and Artaxerxes. Did they give up?

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No, they did not. How do we know that? Because we have the Word of God.

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What's hindering you? What's in your way? I don't know what's in your way.

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I don't know what hinders you. I don't know what makes you want to give up. There's plenty that makes me want to give up.

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But friends, the grace of God does not allow

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His children to utterly give up. For we will persevere to the end because of Jesus Christ.

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Let me close with this. Alexander McLaren, in his commentary on the book of Ezra, wrote this.

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The insincere request made by the adversaries was based on an untruth for the

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Samaritans did not worship Jehovah as the Jews, but along with their own gods.

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To divide God's dominion with others was to dethrone Him altogether.

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What a statement McLaren makes here. To divide His dominion with others was to dethrone

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Him altogether. In the New Testament we're taught that a house divided against itself will fall.

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It cannot stand. Jesus Christ said, A man cannot serve

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God and mammon for he will hate the one and love the other. That's what

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Jesus taught in the New Testament. So to divide loyalty between God and the world.

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God, I'm going to give you 90 % of my loyalty, but in order to make it and to get along in this world,

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I'm going to have to give the world 10 % of my loyalty. Oh no! The church must never put ourselves in that place.

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The kingdom of God cannot be limited or the kingdom of God cannot be divided in such a way.

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McLaren went on to say this. To have accepted it would have been tantamount to frustrating the very purpose of the return and consenting to be muzzled about the sin of idolatry.

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Let me encourage you to do something. When you're tempted to compromise on the

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Lord, remember what the Lord has done. Remember the times that, what

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I must do, I must remember the times that I have been chastised by God. And when

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I'm chastised by God, guess what? There is a reason I'm being chastised. It's because I am sinning against Him.

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The children of Israel knew where they come from. They knew the history of their forefathers being brought out of the land of Egypt.

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They knew the history of why they had been in Babylonian captivity for disobeying God. And here, by means of providence, they are faced with a challenge.

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Are we going to go back and live in the old ways of compromise and disobedience to God?

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Or are we going to be faithful to God as He has been faithful to us? As for me and my house, we're going to serve the

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Lord. I can't impose that on you. Boy, I wish I could.

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You'd think, by the way, sometimes, and I know it's a little long, and we're about to wrap it up here. You'd think

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I was trying to impose my will on you. When I preach like this, it's because I'm pleading with you to honor the

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Lord with your life. To honor the Lord who gave

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His only begotten Son to die for your sin. And when you are tempted because of the foolishness and the idiocy of people who proclaim to be

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Christians to give up on God, be reminded that they are not your measure, they are not your standard, that the holy

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Lord of glory is that in Him alone. And when you look at Him, He is perfect.

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He is pure. He is the

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Father of lights according to the New Testaments, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.

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When you look at the Lord, you're not going to see shadows. You're not going to see a bit of light.

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You're going to see the whole thing. The cleric went on to say in closing, so one answer only was possible, and it was given with unwelcome plainness of speech, which might have been more courteous and not less firm.

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It flatly denied any common ground. It claimed exclusive relation to our

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God, which meant not yours. It underscored the claim by reiterating that Jehovah was the

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God of Israel. So in the context of the text here, the children of Israel were bold in their proclamation.

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They were forthcoming in their declaration, their statement of faith, that you do not serve the same

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God that we serve because you have other gods. And the Lord our God said, you shall have no other gods before me.

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They were firm. They were direct. They claimed no common ground. And they claimed exclusive relation to God.

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And so their relation to God, again, was not based upon their doing.

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God chose them because He is sovereign. And He told them years and years before, why did

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I choose you? Not because you were the biggest. Not because you were the strongest. But simply because I chose to set my love on you.

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And it is still the same because He is still the same. Our relation to God is not based upon our deeds or our works.

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Our denominational affiliation. We've got Baptists with names on the sign.

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And that's who we are. We are a Reformed Baptist Church. Reformed Baptist Church.

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But our relation to God is not based upon that. Our relation to God is based upon the finished work of His only begotten

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Son, who died on the cross for our sins, according to the Scriptures, and was buried.

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And that according to the Scriptures, He rose again on the third day. And according to the

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Scriptures, that He ascended to the Father, where He ever lives, to make intercession for us.

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Until such a day and such a time as He determines. Now He's coming back.

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And in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump, the trumpets are going to sound, the dead in Christ are going to be raised incorruptible, and then those of us who are still alive and remain and breathing at that time are going to be caught up together with Him in the air.

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And so shall we ever be with Him, according to the Scriptures. That is our relation to God.

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So I want to encourage you, dig into the Word, study to show yourself approved, so that when the world comes and says, you know what, we've got more in common than you think, in love and in compassion, but with firmness, we say, oh no, we do not.

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And we will not compromise, and we will affirm the truth of what

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God's Word teaches us, and we will hold to that. Now if you want to come over to that side, hallelujah, then we'll say we've got something in common.

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But until then, it's God or nothing. Stand with us if you would this morning, please.