Keep sharing good news without ads.
July 22, 2018 AM: A Testament To God’s Faithfulness Ezra 2 Pastor Josh Sheldon
We'll turn now if you would to our text for this morning Which is found in the book of Ezra in the second chapter. Ezra is sandwiched there between 2nd Chronicles and then Nehemiah. Ezra chapter 2. Now these were the people of the province who came up out of the captivity of those exiles whom Nebuchadnezzar The king of Babylon had carried captive to Babylonia.
They returned to Jerusalem and Judah each to his own town. They came with Zerubbabel, Yeshua, Nehemiah, Saraiah, Re 'eliah, Mordecai, Bilshan, Mizpah, Bigvi, Rehum, and Ba 'ana. The number of the men of the people of Israel.
The sons of Parash 2 ,172. The sons of Shepetiah 372 the sons of Erath 775 the sons of Pahath Moab namely the sons of Yeshua and Joab 2 ,812. The sons of Elam 1 ,254 the sons of Zatu 945 the sons of Zechai 760 the sons of Bani 642 the sons of Babi 623 the sons of Asgad 1 ,222 the sons of Adinakam 666 the sons of Bigvi 2 ,056 the sons of Aden 454 the sons of Ater namely of Hezekiah 98 the sons of Bezi 323 the sons of Jorah 112 the sons of Hashim 223 the sons of Gebar 95 the sons of Bethlehem 123 the men of Netapah 56 the men of Anantot 128 the sons of Asmaveth 42 the sons of Kiriath, Arim, Herperet and Beirut 743 the sons of Ramah and Geba 621 the sons of Mikmas 122 the men of Bethel and I 223 the sons of Nebo 52 the sons of Magbish 156 the sons of the other Elam 1 ,254 the sons of Harim 320 the sons of Lod Hadid and Ono 725 the sons of Jericho 345 the sons of Sana 'a 3630.
For those keeping track we're now halfway through this chapter. I say that so I can catch my breath. The priests the sons of Jediah of the house of Yeshua 973 the sons of Emmer 1052 the sons of Pashur 1247 the sons of Harim 1017 the Levites the son of Yeshua and Codmiel the sons of Hodevaya 774 excuse me just 74 the singers the son of Asaph 128 the sons of the gatekeepers the son of Shalom the sons of Atir the sons of Talmud the sons of Akub the sons of Hatita and the sons of Shobai in all 139 the temple servants the son of Zeeha the sons of Hasupa the sons of Taba 'at the sons of Kiras the sons of Sa 'iah.
The sons of Put 'an the sons of Lebanon the sons of Haggabah the sons of Akub the sons of Haggab the sons of Shum lie the sons of Hanan the sons of Gidel the sons of Gahar the sons of Rhea the sons of resin the sons of Nakoda the sons of Gezem the sons of Uzzah the sons of Passaia the sons of Bessi the sons of Asnah the sons of Meunim, excuse me, the sons of Nepishim, the sons of Bakub, the sons of Hakuba, the sons of Harur, the sons of Bazlut, the sons of Mahida, the sons of Harsha, the sons of Barkas, the sons of Sesera, the sons of Tema, the sons of Neziah, and the sons of Hatipa, the sons of Solomon's servants, the sons of Sotai, the sons of Hasa-peret, the sons of Peruta, the sons of Jaala, the sons of Darkhan, the sons of Gedel, the sons of Shepetiah, the sons of Hatil, the sons of Pakoret, Hazabayim, the sons of Ami.
All the temple servants and the sons of Solomon's servants were 392. The following were those who came up from Tel Malah, Tel Harsha, Cherub, Adan, and Emer, though they could not prove their fathers' houses or their descent, whether they belonged to Israel.
The sons of Uliah, the sons of Tobiah, the sons of Nakoda, 652. Also of the sons of the priests, the sons of Habiah, the sons of Hakoz, and the sons of Barzillai, who had taken a wife from the daughters of Barzillai, the Degiliadite, and was called by their name.
These sought their registration among those enrolled in the genealogies, but they were not found there, and so they were excluded from the priesthood as unclean. The governor told them that they were not to partake of the most holy food until there should be a priest to consult the Urim and the Thummim.
The whole assembly together was 42 ,360, besides their male and female servants, of whom there were 7 ,337, and they had 200 male and female singers. Their horses were 736, their mules were 245, their camels were 435, and their donkeys were 6 ,720.
Some of the heads of the families, when they came to the house of the Lord that is in Jerusalem, made freewill offerings for the house of God to erect on its site. According to their ability, they gave to the treasury of the work 61 ,000 derricks of gold, 5 ,000 minutes of silver, and 100 priests' garments.
Now the priests, the Levites, some of the people, the singers, the gatekeepers, and the temple servants lived in their towns, and all the rest of Israel in their towns. That is the Word of God from Ezra chapter 2.
Why is this list here? Some of you may be wondering why I read it all, and for some of you you're not thinking, why did he read it all? They're thinking, well why did he read it all? Why did he read all of that?
What did we have here? We had 70 verses. In those 70 verses you heard a 110 names, you heard 21 cities or towns, all strung together with a total count of 17 verbs. 11 of those verbs come from the action pact were, or was, which really are the same verb is, they're just different forms of it.
So 17 verbs, 13 of which are really the same. Now this might be a good cure for your insomnia some evening, but are you asking, is that really a preaching text? Why would he have made us endure all of that with that constant list of names and just numbers with no linking verbs?
It's just simply a list, an inventory. Why is it even here? Much less, why did your preacher this morning read the whole thing to you? Well we can regard it as Scripture, and regarding it as such we can let the Apostle Paul remind us why God by His Holy Spirit thought it good that this or any other biblical historical text is even written and preserved.
I'll give you a composite paraphrase of two different explanations we have for this, one from Romans chapter 15 verse 4, the other from 1st Corinthians 10 verse 11. And so just to wrap those two together and give us a paraphrase, it's like these things were written and preserved so that we, centuries later, will in them find encouragement, an encouragement to persevere, to have hope in the promises of God, and to receive instruction in how to live in this present age.
So says the Apostle Paul in the book of Romans and the book of 1st Corinthians as to why these histories even exist, why God by His Holy Spirit inspired them in the first place and took care to preserve them so that here today in this place in the year 2018 we would have this to read, and by it be encouraged, by it have endurance, by it have hope.
Well like the man who found the pearl of great price we may have to dig a bit, but the treasure God has placed in these verses is really only a spade full beneath the surface. What do we learn here from this listing?
This listing of these people who came from Babylon, came from the exile, and got returned to their homeland, to Judah, to Israel. What do we learn here? We learn, dear ones, that our God is faithful. We learn that our God is true to His Word, that what God says He will do, and what God does He accomplishes by the power of His Word.
By stirring up Cyrus' heart to return this people, as we studied last week, we learn that God is faithful. And last week that's where we found him, stirring up the heart of Cyrus, this pagan king, to fulfill what he had said through the Prophet Jeremiah, that is to release the Jews to return home after 70 years of exile.
We learn that our God is faithful when we go through a list like this. He's faithful not just to nations, not just in the grand scheme of history, but to His individual knowledge, His knowledge of the individual, I should say.
That God stirs up nations, He makes peoples, He controls history, and at the same time takes notice of the one. We learn that our God is true, and faithful, and all-knowing, and all-powerful, and all
Jeremiah had told the children of Israel to obey the Word of God and put their necks under the yoke of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, who is coming under God's will, by God's command, to destroy the temple as a judgment against their sin.
And Jeremiah said, put your neck under his yoke, not Cyrus' yoke, Nebuchadnezzar's yoke. Jeremiah said the exile would last for 70 years. God is true, because after 70 years it was over. And never once were they under the yoke, never once did they put their neck under the foot of Cyrus.
Did you notice that? In his first year Cyrus said, return, because it was not God, our faithful God's will, that they should ever be under Cyrus. God is true to His Word. Last week we preached Ezra as this second Exodus, as the people were in exile as it were in Egypt, so they were in exile in Babylon.
And as God heard the groanings of those in Egypt and redeemed them, 430 years later as he had told Abraham he would, and as Moses says, to that day they were released. So they were released from Babylon.
And the second Exodus, this return to Judah. And this morning as we look at this faithful God, as we find encouragement, as we find hope, as we find a basis to persevere in the faith by this history, let's look to God in just that way, knowing that God gives His Word, keeps His Word, accomplishes His Word, and much of that through the individual.
As through the individual components, which is you, which is me, which is everyone through whom Christ is building His church today, He will accomplish His Word. Consider for a moment the compiler of this list of names.
Now Ezra recorded it in Ezra chapter 2. Ezra is by most scholars considered to be the author of the book by his name, but he's not the compiler of those names. As we go through this book, and it is my intent to preach a chapter a week until we get to chapter 7, which is where Ezra finally shows up some 80 years after the beginning of this history.
In the first year of Cyrus, the Lord stirs his heart and he sends them back to Jerusalem. 80 years later is when we meet Ezra, whose name is carried in this book. Now my point is simply this, that the man who kept this record was not Ezra, it was to his benefit, but the man who kept it, we don't know who he was.
I'm going to call him our scribe, a compiler, an accountant, our historian. But I want to ask us for a moment, why did he keep this record? This 110 names, 70 verses, he didn't write them in verses, we divided them up in verses some centuries ago.
Why did he keep this record, this inventory? Some scholars think it was a tax rule so that the governor would know where to go to get his levy. Others think it was a property record so the lands were confiscated by Babylon could be returned to the right clan.
And back in the book of Joshua, in the book of Numbers, we know how important that was. And still others focus on the idea that it shows who are the true Israelites, who are the priests, who are the Levites, and so forth.
And there's actually much to be said for each of these ideas. Every one of them would have been important to that people then. God's faithfulness is seen in just the fact that there was a list to compile.
Our scribe must have seen the desperate condition that the people were in. I mean, there are actually three exiles. You can catch this in chapter 36 of 2nd Chronicles. That Babylon came, fearing that there was going to be some rebellion against their rule, and they plundered some of the goods and some of the wealth of Israel, Judah, the temple, and took some captives, probably in that first exile was when Daniel, maybe Ezekiel were taken.
Judah kept giving them trouble so they came again and did the same thing, sometimes taking the king prisoner back to Babylon to show that they really were in control. And then finally in 586 BC they came in fury because God sent them in fury, and they destroyed the temple and took the final captives.
And you read in 2nd Chronicles who was left. The poor, the uneducated, the flotsam, if you will, the ones that we don't even want to bother taking you to Babylon for slave labor. Y 'all can just stay here and pull weeds or whatever it is.
Our compiler knew who was left. He knew what was there. This nation was gone, as it were. We talk about this as a second Exodus. We talk about this as being recalled to life. So we know that God had other ideas, but he's looking at a destroyed people that has no temple, that has no wall of their city.
So not much to come home to, right? Not much to hope for there. As we look around and see there's not many educated, there's not many with any money, there's not many who seem to be able to do anything.
There's no skills here. Nothing to come home to. Right? No, not right. That's completely wrong. I would argue that our compiler who made this list that I subjected to you to a moment ago, that was such a benefit to Ezra who's going to come quite a bit later, I would suggest to you that he looked upon their situation with eyes of faith.
He looked with eyes of faith, eyes of faith that have this vision that transcends the circumstance. I mean, one person might look and all he's going to see is the dust settling down on the ruined foundation of a ruined temple that's been plundered of all its goods and take no thought of God.
He will forget the sins that brought down this judgment and see only the destruction and the hopelessness. And rather than being prompted to look to God for hope, he looks to the ground and he sees nothing but despair.
But our chronicler, our scribe, our historian, our accountant, whoever put this list together, this list of names and towns, he saw something else. He saw a faithful God who would restore true worship amongst his people just as he had promised.
Isaiah's prophecy begins with comfort. Yes, comfort my people. Tell Jerusalem her sins have been double paid for, that God's anger is through, it had a limit, it had an endpoint. And this chronicler who put together this list had faith in that endpoint, in the prophecies made that God would forgive their sins.
Our chronicler, our scribe, our historian, he wrote in the hope that God would send a man, a priest, who would bring the temple into proper order, one who would care that his law for temple service given to them by David, his servant, would be followed.
One who would administer things properly in accordance with God's will. One who would care about this list and knowing where these men came from and who is qualified according to God's law to perform whatever service they would do in the temple.
He gave this short genealogy in the hope that God would once again dwell among his people, that offerings would once again be made to him, that songs of praise would again be heard. How did our chronicler see things?
For we walk by faith and not by sight. You think of the devastation he was looking at. You think of the people who were left behind to be the nucleus, to get this thing started again. Perhaps the hard labor that's going to have to do the hard work to restore what had been destroyed in the war before then.
And with eyes of faith he says, God is going to keep his word. God keeping his word will one day send someone who's going to care about this list, who's going to need to know where all these people came from, who came back from Persia, who they are, what their background is, where they descended from.
I mean think of ourselves. Think of ourselves on our side of the cross. We who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. I mean we have as our own the Son of God, the one in whom all God's promises are yes and amen.
We can ask ourselves, where do we stand in relation to God's promises? If we saw something even close to this, would we leave ourselves a list for the next man, the one who, if we don't see it in our day, will be the one who brings God's promises to fulfillment?
I mean, do we join the ten scouts who couldn't see past the giants in the land? They were huge. They were powerful. The city's walls were impossible to scale or bring down. And ten of them said, oh my goodness, lions and tigers and bears, oh my, we need to go.
Let's get out of here. We've been delivered to a place we cannot take. And two, and you know where I'm alluding to? Caleb and Joshua. They say, of course we can take this land. Well that's ridiculous.
No you can't. Look at the size of them. God can do it. Eyes looking past the circumstance. The two who said God is surely able to deliver them into our hands. I mean, we could ask ourselves, even as we so briefly consider this list in Ezra chapter 2, and just put ourselves in the seat of that scribe and what he must have been thinking.
Is there anything we deal with that God cannot provide? That God we have not seen, God has provided? Are we, as were the people left in the land, poverty stricken? No, we don't have that circumstance.
We have jobs. And where jobs have been lost, we have history with God that proves that God is bigger than that circumstance. Has our nation been run over by its enemies? Perhaps the White House torn down brick by brick or anything like that?
Have we been forcefully taken out of our homes? We've dealt with none of that. I would challenge us to look at things as this scribe has looked. Was he just a happy man? Was he just a positive outlook type of person?
No. He may have been that. He may have been as dour as anyone we've ever met, but he had confidence in God's word that this would mean something to someone one day because God would keep his word. Whoever wrote this record that Ezra picked up had seen all the destruction that we can imagine and more.
Yet he leaves this roster in the hope of God sending one who would appreciate its value. Consider for a moment towards the end of that chapter where it speaks of the Urim and the Thummim. Look again there at verse 63.
The governor told them they were not to partake of the most holy food until there should be a priest to consult Urim and Thummim. Urim and Thummim were worn by the high priest as part of his special garb.
Now Urim and Thummim are kind of mysterious and they don't come up a lot in the Bible and I'm not going to go into a long lecture about them. There's too much mystery about them. It's too far from where we are today, but we do know that it had to do with making inquiries of God.
It had to do with inquiring of God. I'll just give you a couple of verses to support this idea. Numbers chapter 27 verse 21,. And he shall stand before Eleazar the priest, who shall inquire for him by the judgment of the Urim before the Lord.
At his word they shall go out, and at his word they shall come in, both he and all the people of Israel with him, the whole congregation. And just one more, 1st Samuel 14 41,. Therefore Saul said, O Lord God of Israel, why have you not answered your servant this day?
If this guilt is in me or in Jonathan my son, O Lord God of Israel, give Urim. But if this guilt is in your people Israel, give Thummim. I don't know why the one is Urim and the other is Thummim, but the idea here is that the Urim and the Thummim represent this idea that God is the source of wisdom, and he is all discernment, and that he answers our inquiries.
That when we go to God, he has a response to make. That we believe that God is, and that he rewards those who diligently seek after him. Whoever put this list together, our scribe, our accountant, our historian, whoever put this list together believed that someone would come for whom this would be of utmost importance.
Someone who would insist that anyone who serves in the temple was qualified. Eighty years later, that someone was Ezra. And our compiler must also have had faith that the temple, its foundation, not even yet begun, would rise from the ashes of their defeat and their disgrace.
This list with the singers, the servants, the gatekeepers, the priestly genealogy is a list of faith. This man believing that this temple would rise up again and God would once again be blessed and praised there.
He looks to a day when a priest will be installed who would be godly, be knowledgeable, one who would inquire as to God's will. He sees a day when the Thummim and the Urim would again be worn by the high priest.
As the high priest goes before God, intercede on their behalf, inquiring as to God's will for them. Jesus is our great high priest, of course. Jesus fulfills all that this man must have looked ahead to, looked forward to, hoped for.
Because Jesus, our great high priest, he goes before our inquiries. Jesus, our great prophet, whose divine power is granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory by his excellence.
He gave us a word that is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work.
Whatever this Urim and this Thummim actually were, they had to do with faith. Faith that God is wise, that God is good, that God rewards those who diligently seek after him. And we can think about this, we could say, oh, that today God's people would pray more than they planned, that they would trust in a God whose ways have been revealed in Jesus Christ, his son, and the word that Jesus Christ is and this scripture that Christ has given us.
You know, too often we hear, this is my course and nothing's going to change it. Here is what I have decided. And we can tell just with human wisdom and knowing circumstances that this is not prayed about, the scriptures are not open, there's been no consultation, there's been no Urim or Thummim.
Our scribe who left this for Ezra looked to the day when God's people would have this man who would seek God's will and that God's people would hear and obey. And it's not that much different for us today.
We don't have a high priest walking into the holiest place wearing this thing on his breastplate. We don't have that today, do we? But don't we have something far greater? Our great and eternal high priest standing and interceding this moment for us before God?
We have a great high priest who's given his spirit so we don't have to have this Urim and this Thummim, whatever they were, however they looked, what they represented, though, we have in an infinitely greater way, more than our scribe could ever have imagined, because we have the completed scripture, the faith once for all handed to the saints.
We have the spirit in and amongst us. We have Christ by his word, our great priest and high prophet, ministering and working through the hearts of his people. We have no more or fewer inquiries than the people then did, but we do have an answer in a way that they didn't even imagine, by faith in Christ and his Holy Spirit.
Much of this is just what it means when we look at these historical records, because it's our history with God that ensures our future. You know, we don't see the promises all fulfilled, but like our scribe in Ezra 2, we trust that they will be.
He was preparing himself, he was preparing that next people, that generation coming after him for that day when God would make good the word they had promised. Where did his faith come from? Well, of course, faith is a gift of God, not of works, we know that.
But this man, I would argue, this man knew the destruction that Babylon had brought. He saw the hopelessness of it. Perhaps he was walking with Jeremiah when the Lamentations, Jeremiah wrote and said, your mercies are new each day.
And could he have written those words with perhaps this scribe walking next to him? Of course, I'm making up a picture there, while looking upon the destroyed temple and seeing that destruction, the wall broken down.
Lord willing, when we get done with Ezra, we go to Nehemiah, we'll read and learn about the wall being rebuilt. And in that situation, Jeremiah says, of course, his inspiration, it becomes scripture, his mercies are new each day.
This is what it means that our history ensures our future, that God is faithful and wherever we are now, whatever circumstance you're going through this moment, however hard it is, where do you find the strength?
Where do you find the endurance? Where do you find the hope to carry on, to persevere in believing? Well, sometimes we have to go back to what God did before the circumstance and remember that God is good and that he has delivered me, just as his word promises, delivered us from sin by giving us faith to believe in Jesus Christ and what he did on the cross.
That primarily, that first of all, that biggest of all. But remember the small deliverances. I remember the day, was it weeks? It was not months after I was saved. And my dear wife explained to me that we now have a duty called tithing, which all my years being raised in the temple in Judaism, I'd never even heard of it.
What? What's this tithe? Well, she explained it to me. I go, huh, well, let's think about that. Let's talk. Let's pray about it. Well, you don't need to pray. It's in the Bible. Well, let's give us some real thought here.
And I'm saying all this as I'm opening the mail. Well, there in the mail was my refund for my income taxes, to the penny, a tithe. Remembering small things like that, we call them God sightings, and knowing that God is true, God is faithful, God is just, God is reliable.
Our history with God, the history we have here is that foundation, is that basis, is given to us that we would persevere and have hope. And as we're going through these hard times, as hard as they are, and God knows how hard they are, and God has piteous on us because they are hard, and God is sovereign, so they're all under his control, and as hard as they can be, knowing that because he's delivered us in the past, and his word says he's going to deliver us, and his word says that these things are for our good, let us there, as I would argue did our scribe in Ezra too, find endurance and hope and perseverance.
Let us, as was the purpose in sending Babylon to bring this destruction and this circumstance in the first place, think carefully on the sins that we have committed, that brought us to this pass, wherever we are.
Let us go to God in repentance, let us go to Jesus Christ and seek again his forgiveness, which in 1 John 1, 9 is promised over and over. Let's not just look at this list of names and say, okay, pastor's right, our preacher's telling us that it is, it is giving them hope, he did count on this day when this would all be fulfilled again.
It's more than that. It's for us a way to look at ourselves and where we are, and as Judah should have, see our sins and fall down before God in repentance and ask his forgiveness, and then know that these hard times, these circumstances, this ruined temple, this broken down wall as they had is for our good.
It does something. That's what it means when we talk about our history and the truth of God, assuring our future. And if you're in Christ Jesus, if your faith is in him, this is your history, as much as it belonged to the Jews then.
This is our history. Ezra, the whole book is a chapter, is a book of the church. There's something else in this list of names that I think is worth noticing. The first two names are Zerubbabel and Yeshua.
Yeshua with the E there, J E instead of J O, it's just a variant spelling of Joshua, which in Greek, of course, is Jesus. Zerubbabel was the governor. Yeshua was the high priest. Now think about this for a moment.
We're talking about faith. We're talking about looking past circumstance. We're talking about trusting in God and looking beyond what the eyes will show us and looking with the eyes of faith. This governor is descended from David.
So David is on the throne just as God promised he would be forever, though this one wasn't forever, but you know what I'm speaking of there. And he calls himself the governor. You're the governor of what?
Your city's in ruins. Your subjects are the poor of the land. They're not worth anything. Jerusalem's a spot on the map, but with its wall broken, it wasn't even really a city in that day. And its repair is going to wait for Nehemiah's arrival.
Years later, when Nehemiah came, he insisted that there'd be no more commerce on the Sabbath, but he couldn't enforce that until the wall was built. Anyone who wanted to come and do what they wanted could come and go as they pleased.
And yet this man, Zerubbabel, a descendant of David, was their governor. And he called himself their governor. Governor of what? What do you have? How can you say you're the governor of anything? I'm the governor because God is true to his word, a descendant of David, and God, true to his word, released us from captivity.
And in this God I trust, and therefore, as grandiose as it may seem to the physical eye, the governor. Zerubbabel. But then there's Yeshua, their high priest. Back then, where did the high priest function?
He functioned in the temple, which was in a little better shape than the city's walls. This might seem comical. I mean, imagine you're in the marketplace. You're in safe with all these men. You're standing in line.
He says to you, what do you do? He said, well, I'm an accountant. I'm an engineer, whatever the case is. And you say, well, what do you do? Me? Why, I'm the governor of God's people in Jerusalem. And this is my friend.
He's our high priest. And you say, you're the governor of who or what? Where do you do your high priesting? Well, at the temple. There is no temple. There's going to be. Right. Again, faith, the trust in God's word, faith, the evidence of things unseen, the assurance of what God says he will do.
No, it wouldn't be grandiose at all just as King David, after he'd been anointed king, but before crowned, behaved as king with his small band of men, with Saul chasing him. How could he do that? Because God said he was king.
Consider what Paul says, for consider your calling, brothers, that not many of you were wise according to worldly standards. Not many were powerful. Not many were of noble birth. And yet those are the ones these two minister to.
It is said that when Queen Victoria read this verse, she stopped for a minute and then she finally said, well, not many noble, but some, meaning, of course, herself. But the point here, look at what they had.
And yet to them, the high priest and the governor called by God to be those to that people and trusting in God to build them up to where they would be. Just as we trust God when Jesus Christ says, I will build my church.
And we say Christ indeed is building his church. With whom? No one more grand than you and me. No one more exalted than this preacher here in this place, this day, and you people who are hearing this word.
And yet it is God's beloved son who says, I will build my church. And whatever we see, we can look beyond it. And with eyes of faith, see what Jesus says. A church being built up, people coming into the image of Christ, people confessing their sins to one another, going before God for forgiveness, being formed more and more into the image of Jesus Christ.
That is the building of the church. Now, if we spent some time putting together a composite picture of these men, I think it'd be a picture of very competent men, the sort of men who could gain a big following.
Not the kind of men we'd expect to see in some backwater presiding over a ruined temple and city. They could have stayed back in Babylon, couldn't they? They could have stayed there where they were comfortable.
They could have joined their forefathers and said, well, you know, the leeks and the garlic were pretty good. At least we got them every day. We'll stay there. Thank you very much. But they didn't. God had judged Israel.
Some died, some were spared. The remnant, the ones who were spared, the ones who got returned when God stirred Cyrus' spirit, they submitted to the word of God and put themselves under Babylon's yoke.
Just as Jeremiah had said, Jeremiah 27, 17, serve the king of Babylon and live. Jeremiah 29, 5 and the rest tells them to go there because it's God's way of saving that remnant that will one day return.
Submitting to Babylon was then submitting to God. They were told to surrender and then go into exile. And while there, they were told to build their houses, to live at peace, to pray for the good of that, the welfare of that city where God has sent them.
Seek the welfare of it where I've sent you into exile. Oh, God's hand is hard at times, but always good. First Peter 4, 17 puts the responsibility on us. It says, for it is time for judgment to begin at the household of God.
And if it begins with us, we can pause and say, well, it darn well should begin with us because Jesus Christ was judged for our sins. Christ bore our judgment. And then who more should be judged for their sins knowing that Christ paid for their sins than those whose faith says that, yes, that is indeed the case.
If it begins with us, what will be the outcome for those who do not obey the gospel of God? Back then, those who denied God's sovereign hand stayed in Jerusalem and they fought and they died. Their outcome for disobedience was a foretaste of the ultimate outcome for disobedience to the ultimate message, which is this gospel.
Think of what is accomplished when God judges. Back to Jeremiah. Jeremiah 15, 7 says, I have winnowed them with a winnowing fork in the gates of the land. I have bereaved them. I have destroyed my people.
They did not turn from their ways. You know, winnowing is that process where they take the pitchforks or whatever they had then and they throw the wheat harvest in the air. And then the wheat, the heavy, the good part, the useful part falls down on the ground and the chaff, the useless part, goes off into the breeze.
Just the slightest puff of air and it takes it away. It's almost lighter than air. The remnant, this list of names, these 110 names, this is that winnowing. It is this huge people of God and they're the ones who followed what the prophet Jeremiah told them, surrendered to Babylon, went off into hard exile and lived and were brought back.
How many was it? It's like Gideon's marauders. He got whittled down to 300. Exodus 12, 37 says in the first Exodus, it was some 600 ,000 men besides their wives and children and servants and cattle, 600 ,000 men.
And who comes back from exile? In this list from Ezra 2, 42 ,360 winnowed down. And here in this list and with this we can draw to a close. Notice something else that God knows them. These names are there not just because some good accountant knew how to keep debits on the left and credits on the right and keep an accurate record.
They are there because God knows them, each one of them. And think about this. The Proverbs says that the king's heart is in God's hand and God does with it just as he does streams of water, turning it where he will.
Kings are raised up. Kings are deposed at God's word. Nations are formed. Nations are destroyed because God wills it. And yet where is God's eye? What's that old hymn? His eyes on the sparrow? His eyes on the individual.
We're not saved as a people. We're saved as individuals and brought into a people. A people is formed in Jesus Christ. That people is the church. Ephesians chapter 2 verse 15 says that he creates this one new man from the two.
And back then he meant Jew and Gentile melded together into this single people. By Peter's description in chapter 2 and verse 9 of his first epistle, a holy nation. But not just kind of plopped down here.
One by one. Person by person. Brought to faith in Christ. And then put, 1 Corinthians 12 would tell us, into the body of Christ. Think of what this list means to you. That God knows you. That God knows me.
How personal, how intimate this is. How caring he is. Jesus in chapter 2 verse 17 of Revelation. He says, I will give him, this is the believer. This is the one whose faith is in him. I will give him a white stone with a new name written on the stone that no one knows except the one who receives it.
This is salvation. This is something this list tells us in Ezra chapter 2. That God keeps his word. That God saves the individual. That God comes to you. He tells you that if you will repent of your sins.
If you will go to the cross and by repentance towards God and faith in Jesus Christ. Seek forgiveness of your sins. You the one will be forgiven. This is the promise of God's word. This is the value of the individual that we see in Ezra chapter 2 in this long list of names.
Most of these names are forgotten. Most of the towns that I read are unknown to us except we know them because they're in our Bibles. We know no more about them. Know this. God knows each one by name.
And that's how he calls you by name to repent of your sins. To put your faith and trust in his son. That's how he called me by name. This is how he puts his finger on the one that he would have to be a part of a nation that his son is building up called the church one by one.
And so in the great movements of man, in these huge geopolitical events that we have in the chronicles and in Ezra and later in Nehemiah, see where it starts. With the one. By a good and gracious and loving God who cares for them all and will keep us together.
A God whose word is good, whose word is true, and we're being built up into exactly what he would have us to be. Amen? Our Heavenly Father give you thanks for the day that you've given us and once again for this word that we can gather around and there find encouragement and comfort and hope in our time of need.
I pray Father that as we have heard this word that we would, because we are hearing the grand things that God has done in history, that we would by that be assured that all your word is true. That in Jesus Christ your word is yes and amen.
And it is that word to us that we live by, that we count upon. And we thank you for these things in Christ's name. Amen.