Ezra 5

Ezra 5: The Prophets Restart the Temple Work

All right this morning we're in Ezra chapter 5, so we'll read them first and go from there. These are the words of God. Now the prophets Haggai and Zechariah the son of Iddo prophesied to the Jews who were in Judah and Jerusalem in the name of the God of Israel who is over them.

Then Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel and Jeshua the son of Jazadak Rose and began to rebuild the house of God that is in Jerusalem and the prophets of God were with them supporting them at the same time.

Tatanai the governor of the province beyond the river and Shethar Boaz and I and their associates came to them and spoke to them thus. Who gave you a decree to build this house and to finish the structure?

They also asked them this. What are the names of the men who are building this building? But the eye of their God was on the elders of the Jews and they did not stop them until the report should reach Darius.

And then an answer be returned by letter concerning it this is a copy of the letter that Tatanai the governor of the province beyond the river and Shethar Boaz and I and his associates the governors who were in the province beyond the river sent to Darius the king.

They sent him a report in which was written as follows. To Darius the king all peace. Be it known to the king that we went to the province of Judah to the house of the great God. It is being built with huge stones and timber is laid in the walls.

This work goes on diligently and prospers in their hands. Then we asked those elders and spoke to them thus who gave you a decree to build this and to finish the structure. We also asked them their names for your information that we might write down the names of their leaders.

And this was their reply to us. We are the servants of the God of heaven and earth. We are built rebuilding the house that was built many years ago, which a great king of Israel built and finished. But because our fathers had angered the God of heaven He gave them into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar King of Babylon the Chaldean who destroyed this house and carried away the people to Babylonia.

However in the first year of Cyrus king of Babylon Cyrus the king made a decree that this house of God should be rebuilt and The gold and silver vessels of the house of God which Nebuchadnezzar had taken out of the temple that was in Jerusalem and brought into the temple of Babylon.

These Cyrus the king took out of the temple of Babylon and they were delivered to the one whose name was Shesh Bazaar. Whom he had made governor and he said to them take these vessels go and put them in the temple that is in Jerusalem and let the house of God be rebuilt on its site.

Then this Shesh Bazaar came and laid the foundation of the house of God that is in Jerusalem and from that time until now It has been in building and it's not yet finished. Therefore if it seems good to the king Let search be made in the royal archives there in Babylon to see whether a decree was issued by Cyrus the king for the rebuilding Of this house of God in Jerusalem and let the king send us his pleasure in this matter.

God Uses Prophets to Restart His Work

This is the word of the Lord Lord God thank you for your scripture and we pray that this word would have a profound impact on our souls that you would Use the the preaching of your holy word to change us and to make us more like Christ.

And to help us to trust you and have greater faith in you than we've ever had before in Jesus name. Amen. So this morning We are told how the Israelites turned everything around and they started rebuilding the temple after they stopped.

Last week we saw enemies of God come in and through a variety of strategies and and ways they eventually Stop the Israelites from building and that stoppage didn't last just a few days. It didn't last just a few weeks or even just a few months.

But it lasted years and years. The enemies of God and God's people had successfully stopped God's plan for years. In a chapter 5 it starts up again and it starts because God sends his people his word.

It starts with a couple of prophets. This morning in chapter 5 we got to see about the prophet Haggai who we've mentioned already a bunch in this sermon series. We get to see the prophet Zechariah and you know last week I was talking to Chris about how awesome the Bible is and it's.

The way the way it's structured, I mean, it's not we don't just get history, right? We don't just get to see what happened. Sometimes that's all we get but sometimes we get to see Explanations of why things happen and like like the book of Ezra.

It's just like a newspaper almost. It's like a narrative story and it's just the facts right like even in our chapter this morning. We saw that he says, okay. This is a copy of the letter that they sent and he just writes down what the letter said word-for-word.

It's just like a newspaper of the book of Ezra. But God doesn't just leave us with just the facts. He also gives us The prophet Haggai and Zechariah and he provides their prophecy in the Bible. So we get to see the content of what they prophesied about.

I Think that is gold. Maybe up maybe I'm weird but I get excited about that because we get to see what happened but also we get to see from God's perspective and interpretation of infallible true interpretation of why it happened and What God thinks about it?

I think that's awesome. Now the prophets of old, you know, the prophets of the Old Testament. What they really did was they preached is what they did. That's what they did. They were preaching. Now it wasn't exactly the same thing that I'm doing obviously.

So when the prophets preached they were delivering direct revelation from God to the people and I do that as well when I'm reading the Bible word-for-word. But the prophets also provided a God-breathed infallible interpretation To the people and so when I interpret the Bible, that's not God-breathed that could that could be fallible.

I could be wrong about things. So what I do and what the prophets do it's different. There's some differences there, but the prophets do preach. That's what they do. God put his own words in their mouth.

And so when they went to the people they preached and It was God's own word. So that's what Haggai and Zechariah were doing in the second year of the reign of Darius king of Persia they were preaching and Because we have the books of Haggai in the books of Zechariah We get to see some of the content of their preaching we get to see what their message was all about.

Here are a few passages. I pulled out from the books of Haggai and Zechariah. This is Haggai Chapter 1 verse 3. It says the word of the Lord came by the hand of Haggai the prophet. Is it a time for you yourselves to dwell in your paneled houses while this house lies in ruins?

Now therefore thus says the Lord of hosts consider your ways. Because of my house that lies in ruins while each of you busies himself with his own house. Therefore the heavens above you have withheld the dew and the earth has withheld its produce and I've called for a drought on the land.

So you see Haggai he preaches and he says that God is not pleased with what the Israelites are doing. He's not pleased with the people as They mind their own business and they ignore God's business. And the prophets message is pretty gloomy.

God has caused the drought. God has caused these troubles that they're they're undergoing. But the prophet doesn't end there his sir. That would be a pretty bad sermon if it ended there. Haggai chapter 2 it's only two chapters, but the second chapter is more hopeful.

Haggai says the latter glory of this house shall be greater than the former says the Lord of hosts and in this place I will give peace declares the Lord of hosts. He says consider from this day onward from the 24th day of the ninth month since the day that the foundation of the Lord's temple was laid.

Consider is the seed yet in the barn indeed the vine the fig the tree the pomegranate the olive tree have yielded nothing. But from this day forth, I will bless you. We get the same kind of pattern in the book of Zechariah this is a different prophet.

But he has a similar method message for the people. Here's how he starts he says the Lord was very angry with your fathers. Therefore say to them thus declares the Lord of hosts return to me Says the Lord of hosts and I will return to you says the Lord of hosts.

Do not be like your fathers to whom the former prophets cried out. Return from your evil ways and from your evil deeds, but they did not hear or pay attention to me declares the Lord. Your father's where are they?

So it's again, it's very kind of Ominous message to start, but then Zechariah says this at the end of his book. He says rejoice greatly o daughter of Zion shout aloud o daughter of Jerusalem. Behold your king is coming to you righteous and having salvation as he humbled and mounted on a donkey on a colt the foal of a donkey.

I Will cut off the chariot from Ephraim the war horse from Jerusalem and the battle bow shall be cut off and he shall speak peace to the nations. His rule shall be from sea to sea and from the river to the ends of the earth as For you also because of the blood of my covenant with you.

I will set your prisoners free from the waterless pit. That's you could you probably recognize part of that. That's a prophecy about Christ Christ the king returning to Jerusalem. You can see the concept of victory.

You can see promise and hope all over the second half of Zechariah's sermon. He starts off severe, but he he calls his people to repent and then there's an a vision of hope for the future. You see I hope you see the similarities here between what the prophets used to do and what preachers do today.

It's this is this is the gospel. That's like when you hear the gospel today. You know, it usually starts with a statement of the fact of sin rebellion. You have rebelled against God you are walking away from God and God is not pleased with that.

It's a serious thing and a lot of times when you hear gospel preaching it's a very serious Solemn thing you find yourself under the wrath of God, but it doesn't end there. The prophets it doesn't end there and I would never end there.

There's always a call to repentance. There's always a call to say stop rebelling against God turn back to God. And it doesn't end there either because after that happens there's encouragement to be had the preaching becomes hopeful.

It tells of a glorious future it tells of salvation it tells of peace it tells of prosperity and blessing. That's the message of Haggai. That's the message of Zechariah and it's the same message today.

The Power of Preaching Is in God, Not Human Talent

And you know what the people in Ezra chapter 5 respond to that message. And it's amazing. They respond almost immediately our text tells us that the prophets began preaching at a certain time and if you Match up the dates between what it says in the book of Haggai for example what you'll find is that Haggai was preaching for three weeks and Only three weeks later the work on the temple begins again.

That is a quick response. That's amazing. One thing I noticed when I saw this is not only does the works have start happening quickly. But nothing changed for them from a legal perspective during this time like it's not like the decree of the king had changed.

It's okay guys. You could start again. They were still technically legally banned from working on the temple. There's no indication in the text that Israel's enemies had sort of changed their mind like, you know, we were wrong you could build.

There's no indication of that. There's no indication of any of the danger that we saw last week. None of that threatening physical opposition none of that has let up. I Think it's safe to say that literally nothing has changed externally for the Jews but something has changed in their hearts and their souls and The preaching was responsible for that change.

I Think when I think about the prophets, maybe you have the same idea. But when I think about the prophets in the in the Old Testament, I think like it sometimes. It's almost like a magical mystical way that it worked right like the prophets eyes start glowing and They give the people the Word of God and like the wind picks up and there's thunder in the distance and you know just for effect and.

So that's how you really knew it was divine revelation me their eyes were going. That's how it is in my head. You know, I think sometimes to the prophets were probably like I go I go back and forth sometimes I think that there were like lunatics like on the street corner just like ranting and raving and sometimes I think that there were like super authoritative the super powerful booming voices.

Commanding respect. I go back and forth between those two images of these prophets. But I bet you I'm wrong on both counts. I bet you most of these prophets. It was just standard preaching. Run of the mill standard preaching.

Now that's not to say they didn't preach with authority. I think they preached with authority but it was still just preaching. I Think they preach with conviction. But it was still just preaching. I think that Haggai and Zechariah and all these guys they preach with faith.

But it was still just preaching and that's not a bad thing. There is great power in preaching when you're preaching the Word of God because God gives it power. Now in the book of Corinthians Paul reminds the people of the Church of Corinth.

He says that the message that he preached wasn't flashy. Like it wasn't super profound or complex. It was just preaching. Corinthians chapter 2 starts off like this. It says when I came to you brothers, I Did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom.

I see so he's saying that the preaching he was it wasn't complex. It wasn't like super profound sounding. It wasn't like insightful or high-minded. But it was simple. He goes on Paul says I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified and I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling and My speech and my message were not implausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power.

So that your faith may not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God. I Think this is how prophets and preachers of God operate. It's not like they all have tremendous oratory skills. I think some of them probably did.

It's not because they had glowing eyes at least not all of them. There was that weird thing with Moses. But they didn't all glow. They didn't. I don't think that all the prophets had advanced rudder rhetoric training.

Some of them maybe they did but I don't think all of them did. Because none of that matters to God because God's the one who gives the message its power. And so they don't need to be super skilled in order to have power in their preaching.

Now obviously we should I mean I I try to be as persuasive as possible. When I preach or when I talk to somebody and you should too. I think there's nothing wrong with practicing rhetoric and practicing.

You know evangelism and stuff like that, there's nothing wrong with that. So when you're talking to your children or your friend or anyone? Yeah, it's okay to read books about how to do that. You want to be as attractive you want to be as convincing as possible?

But understand that the response that you get doesn't depend on your skill alone. In fact the response that you get is entirely within God's power instead of yours. Don't think that the people in Ezra chapter 5 changed their mind in just three short weeks because Haggai and Zechariah were just super persuasive.

Don't think that they went from complete fear and and selfishness to action and humility in such a short time because Haggai was just so profound. Look, you could read Haggai's prophecy or Zechariah's prophecy and it's basic stuff.

It's not. It's not mind-blowing. It's it's basic. But it's true and God caused it to have power and it caused he got caused the message to hit its mark when he wanted it to. So don't worry about how smart you are.

When you're telling someone about the gospel. Because that doesn't matter much in the grand scheme of things. Don't worry about how clever your arguments are how persuasive your arguments are. Because in the grand scheme of things that doesn't matter very much either.

Also, don't worry about how you feel. I think this you know, Paul I get so much encouragement out of this Paul. He says when he first came comes to Corinth. He says that he came in weakness fear and trembling.

I Imagine that's probably how Haggai came. I imagine that's probably how Zechariah also came. I Imagine that you have a conversation about about Christ with your family members or your friends or your co-workers.

And that's completely fine. That's completely fine. In fact, I think according to this verse from Corinthians, it's almost like that's how God wants it. It says here. It says I was with you in weakness and fear and trembling.

Why? Well, he explains why he says so that your faith may not rest in the wisdom of men. But in the power of God. So if you're fearful and weak and trembling as you share the gospel with anyone take heart.

Because at least the way I understand Corinthians that seems to me like it makes you qualified to do it. So let's move on for a second because I want to talk about the response of the people because I think this is so interesting and You know Haggai and Zechariah they preach for three weeks all of a sudden they start working on this temple again and All of a sudden I mean, it's like immediate you get the opposition coming right back the Persian officials.

They're curious Why are you guys working on this temple? And in verse 3 they it's funny. They challenged the people they said who gave you the decree to build this house? And they want to know their names too.

That's. That's a veiled threat. I would say They want to know who's responsible for this. Now, I don't know if it's these Persians were just more agreeable or maybe just more reasonable. I Don't know if maybe the the Israelites just had more resolved this time around.

I don't know what it was. But when they get challenged this time. The work doesn't stop. The work doesn't stop. So they're challenged they know that that that that the king King Artaxerxes told them to stop officially by decree and they stopped.

He didn't reverse that decree. And so it's still in effect and they just start working. And then they get challenged and they continue working interesting. Here's what the Bible says about why the work is continuing.

Verse 5 says the eye of their God was on the elders of the Jews and they did not stop them. To the report should reach Darius and the answer be returned. Is he God responds to the people's obedience. And God responds to their obedience with protection and favor in the face of the opposition notice that God doesn't eliminate the opposition.

Like we have to understand that it's completely within God's power to like maybe have the Persian authorities Distracted and not notice them or maybe even have them not care that they're building the temple or even make them fear.

God can do any of that, but he doesn't he allows the opposition to come right to them directly. But then he shows his people favor in the face of that opposition. What what an encouraging line the eye of their God was on the elders of the Jews and they did not stop them.

I found it interesting when I was reading this that the strength the strategy the Israelites use. They write the letter to the king and they you know, what they do in this letter. I find it very comical.

I don't know if it's intended to be funny, but I found it funny what they do is they they write to the king and they explain the situation and they say get him to search the archives and find the decree made by Cyrus and They conveniently leave out the other part about the decree about Artaxerxes.

Or I told him to stop. Now I find that funny because that's what the enemies of Israel did just in the last chapter. Remember they told the king they said search the archives to find out about how rebellious these people are and They conveniently left out the part about Cyrus allowing them to go build this temple.

So the Israelites use the same strategy in reverse. Which I believe I when I've read that I was like Oh, that's that must be be what that prophet in the New Testament was talking about when he said You should be as shrewd as vipers, but as innocent as doves.

Jesus Christ Is the True Prophet Who Reveals God

You see you should be strategic and clever, but don't sin while you're doing it. And of course the prophet who said that was Jesus Christ. You see this thing we have such an advantage today over the Israelites in Ezra chapter 5.

Because we get the prophecy we see the prophecy more clearly and more completely. So when I preach repentance in faith, just like Haggai did. And when I preach about the future of the future glory that awaits the people of God just like Haggai and Zechariah do I?

Can preach a lot clearer than they can even though they had direct revelation from God and they were speaking God's own words. They were doing it in a much less detailed way. Then we can do it today and the reason we have this advantage is because Jesus Christ the true prophet Came and explained things to us so clearly.

Earlier I said that part of the prophets job was to interpret history. They they would tell you why things happened what they meant and what the future would be like Jesus of course did that too. But Jesus actually interpreted something far more important.

He interpreted God. John 1 17 we said it all together. We said for the law was given through Moses grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God the only God who is at the Father's side.

He has made him known. Now that last bit he has made him known you may have seen my video that comes from one word one Greek word. Exegesis. And that's the word where we get exegesis. So literally what this verse is saying is that Jesus Christ exegetes God to us.

He explains God to us. He interprets God to us they see Jesus Christ is the ultimate prophet and so let's respond to him as the Israelites respond to Haggai and Zechariah will respond with confidence and faith and obedience.

Let's pray Lord God we thank you so much for giving us so much insight into the events of Ezra chapter 5. Through the books of Haggai through the books of Zechariah. Thank you for sending your prophets to your people consistently.

In many different ways in many different times. Thank you for Making sure your message was clearly delivered. You didn't have to send prophets. You could have just left us where we were. But you did send prophets because you loved us that much.

But God as much as we thank you for the prophets that you send as much as we thank you for the preachers over the years. We thank you so much more for your son. Because he explained it all to us God. He explained it clearly to us.

He helps us to understand you. He helps us to understand who you are. And so we're grateful for that. So Lord, I just pray that you know, maybe we think about your son is Differently than we have before Lord in a way that we understand that that he is the ultimate prophet.

And he not only explains history. But he explained the creator of history. And so Lord, we pray that you would help us to be more like him every day. Thank you for your grace and for your mercy in Jesus name.

Amen.