Ezra Chapter 1

The Book of Ezra as a Source of Hope and Confidence

All right, everybody. Well this morning We are gonna be starting a new sermon series in the book of Ezra. So I have chosen the book of Ezra and Obviously, I named my son Ezra. I Think it's a really cool name, but it's also a really cool book and it's a small book that Personally, I don't remember hearing a lot of sermons about maybe you have.

And that wouldn't be out of the realm of possibility, but It's not really quoted from a lot. It's I don't think and I think it's very relevant for us. I think it's very relevant for our situation as the church in the United States and here in Vermont.

And really just around the world. The book of Ezra I think is a very optimistic book. There's a lot of reasons to have optimism despite desperate looking situations, I Think the book of Ezra is full of hope as well.

It's it's it's full of hope even in the middle of a hopeless situation at least by earthly standards, I Think the book of Ezra is full of reasons for us to have Supreme confidence in God's ability to do what he's promised to do.

Despite how difficult or impossible we might think the situation is. The book is Ezra. I think it's so relevant. So I'm looking forward to doing this the next, you know, eight weeks or so. But we'll begin right at the beginning right in Ezra chapter 1.

Cyrus, Jeremiah, and the Stirring of a King’s Heart

So these are the words of God in the first year of Cyrus king of Persia. That the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah might be fulfilled. The Lord stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia. So that he made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom and also put it in writing.

Thus says Cyrus king of Persia The Lord the God of heaven has given me all the kingdoms of the earth. And he has charged me to build him a house at Jerusalem, which is in Judah. Whoever is among you of all his people may his God be with him and let him go up to Jerusalem Which is in Judah and rebuild the house of the Lord the God of Israel.

He is the God who is in Jerusalem. And let each survivor in whatever place he sojourns be assisted by the men of his place with silver and gold with goods and with Beasts besides free will offerings for the house of God that is in Jerusalem then rose up the heads of the fathers.

How how is it heads of the fathers houses of Judah and Benjamin and The priests and the Levites everyone whose spirit God had stirred up to go and to rebuild the house of the Lord that is in Jerusalem and all who were all.

All who were about them aided them with vessels of silver with gold with goods with beasts and with costly wares. Besides all that was freely offered Cyrus the king also brought out the vessels of the house of the Lord that Nebuchadnezzar had carried away from Jerusalem and placed in the house of his gods.

Cyrus king of Persia brought these out in the charge of Mithredra the treasurer who counted them out to Shezobar the prince of Judah and this was the number of them. 30 basins of gold a hunt a thousand basins of silver 29 centers 30 bowls of gold 410 bowls of silver and thought and a thousand other vessels.

All the vessels of gold and of silver were about 5 ,400. All these did Shez Bazar bring up when the exiles were brought up from Babylonia to Jerusalem. These are the words of God. So let's Start by playing pretend.

You don't have to close your eyes, but I do want you to use your imagination. I Want you to think about the world? Well, at least to start we'll just think about how it really is, right? We'll have to imagine too much right now.

People are getting more and more polarized. Every Republican in Congress thinks every Democrat is Stalin. Every Democrat thinks every Republican is Hitler. Things are crazy. Hyperbole is is normal rhetoric on Capitol Hill even in Montpelier.

Even in City Hall if you remember the election last year. Rhetoric is at an all-time high boiling point things are ready to pop. I Doesn't take too much to imagine that that's where we really are. I think.

Further I want you to imagine just in your mind think of the atrocities that have become commonplace. Like people literally fight tooth and nail. For the right to murder babies and they call it health care and that's all funded by you and me.

Think of the endless military conflicts around the world our our country's military. Occupies countless nations and whether you think that's a good thing or a bad thing or a necessary thing. There's at least one thing we can all agree on.

It's ridiculous to think of how much activity our military has and we're not even at war. That's all funded by you and me. Our schools or maybe not here yet, but but probably very soon and probably here as well.

But at least over the border in Canada, there are schools that are teaching. There is no such thing as biological sex. Notice, I didn't say gender. I said biological sex like the DNA. Some schools teach that there's no such thing as that and that's all funded as you and me.

People are locked up like animals for minor infractions. People are extorted for having a busted taillight or a broken turn signal. Sometimes people are even stolen from or moved from their houses because it happens to stand in the way of where.

They're supposed to build the road. All kinds of injustice, it's not not only tolerated, but it's promoted every single day and you and I pay for it. So that's the situation now now now now this is where you have to use your imagination.

A Hypothetical National Turn Toward Biblical Law

It's gonna sound a little weird at first, but Let's just think about this. Imagine if President Donald J. Trump He's preparing to speak at the State of the Union address. Everyone is there. Real news, fake news, everyone's there.

It's all set up in the Congress so the members of Congress can join as well. And in the address the president declares openly and Boldly, and he says that the Lord has stirred up his spirit. He says that that he has reached out to the Senate majority leaders, the minority leaders of the Congress.

And they all feel the same way. All the majority, all the members of Congress, they all feel like the Lord has been stirring their hearts as well. And in turn they've they've decided to reach out to the Supreme Court.

And all the justices they all agree. They say wow, I mean, this is crazy. I thought this was just me. The Lord is stirring up my heart. President Donald Trump says that everyone agrees that we've moved far from God and it's time to reverse course.

So what they've decided to do is they're gonna set up a fully funded task force. With complete autonomy to research into the scriptures. All of the resources and financing available to the United States government will be at its disposal.

So once they've done research and adequate debate has happened. This task force would provide recommendations to the Congress about what to do about our laws all the way from the ground up. Constitutional revisions, amendments, taxes, justice system, all of it.

Nothing is off-limits. Every word of God shall be applied to the best of our ability and best of all. He's not going to appoint people to this. Any one of God's people can participate. Though obviously it'll have to be orderly and with due process.

And the president promises he won't become involved unless he's asked. And The only other time he'll become involved is when it comes time to sign off on the laws. That the Congress formulates with the recommendations of this task force.

Every party, the Congress, the United States. The federal government, the states, every party is committed to producing a system of government as close to biblical as possible. The United States would become a nation dedicated to serving and honoring Yahweh in every area of life.

Now Can you imagine what the response to something like that would be? What would your response be? I would be very skeptical. I would be very skeptical. I would sense a trap. But like what if it all checked out, right?

Like what if Trump really had a change of heart and and and you could you could tell that he wasn't just making this up. Like what if you what if Nancy Pelosi Bernie Sanders all the Republicans? I don't even know their names.

What if everyone was on board and they showed signs that they were actually serious about this. Do you believe it could happen? Now the picture I've painted here is not a perfect analogy obviously but I think it's just as radically weird and It's comparable to what happens in chapter 1 of Ezra.

And the question is do you believe that something like this could happen today? Now my answer is Yes, I do believe it sort of. Like I know in my mind that it could happen like God could change Donald Trump's heart.

He could change the Congress's heart. I know that in my mind, but in my My soul, do I really believe it? I Don't know. I don't know. See, that's why I like reading biblical history like this, right? Because Ezra chapter 1 is very matter-of-fact, right?

It just kind of tells you what happened. But think about really what's going on in this chapter. This is pretty pretty profound. And so I I read these things in biblical history and you know. We see how God has acted in the past and I think that the more we understand that the more confidence we'll have in our present situation.

Because we'll see, you know, we see how the hand of God provides for his people in the past. And these are people just like us the king of site the king of Persia Cyrus. He was a political leader just like our political leaders and.

So that's what the true value of a book like Ezra is we see what how God has acted in in the past through a guy. Like Cyrus we can have confidence how he might act in the future. So there's some there's some interesting nuggets here that I want to I want to hold on to and apply to our current situation.

God's Sovereignty Over Leaders, Human Responsibility, and Political Edicts

The first thing I want to look at is this idea of God's stirring the king's heart. Verse 1 says The first year of Cyrus king of Persia that the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah might be fulfilled.

The Lord Stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia. So that he made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom. That's such an interesting way to say that right like the Lord capital L-O-R-D. Stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia.

Like what does that mean? Do we know for sure what that means? I don't think we do it. It means something right obviously Cyrus was Motivated to do something by God. But Cyrus was a was a pagan king right?

He's sort of a dictator. He's a military champion. He's a conqueror. So does this stirring of the heart mean that maybe Cyrus was regenerated maybe he was Saved at this moment. I don't know. I don't doesn't really say I Think some people think so.

After all if you read the very next verse it starts to say stuff that you know. Really only a believer would say right like here's what it says. Thus says Cyrus king of Persia the Lord the God of heaven has given me all the kingdoms of the earth.

He's charged me to build him a house at Jerusalem. Which is in Judah that that certainly sounds like something a believer would say at first glance. But I'm not so sure it actually means that there have been some historical artifacts found where Cyrus is making declarations, you know similar political declarations.

And he uses similar language about other gods as well like other pagan, you know phony baloney gods. So to him saying this kind of stuff was probably very diplomatic formality, right? So this is sort of political language and he's trying to appeal to some people.

So I don't think there's any reason to assume Cyrus has become a believer yet here we have Inspired scripture saying that God himself has stirred the spirit of Cyrus to make this declaration. The Other thing I noticed about this is it says that God did this he stirred Cyrus his heart.

So that the prophecy of Jeremiah would be fulfilled. Which I think is interesting. You think Cyrus knew about that prophecy. Do you think that Cyrus was aware that he was fulfilling this prophecy of Jeremiah?

I Don't know. I don't I don't I don't think he probably even knew about these prophecies. Because I think about it the king had you know, all the lands of the area he had a lot to do. Not to mention he had his own theology to worry about.

I Highly doubt he knew that he was fulfilling this prophecy of Jeremiah. So if he the question is if he didn't know this, how was God stirring his spirit? How was God getting him to do this? Now my theory on this is it's actually pretty simple the text says that God stirs the heart of the king.

I think that's just another way of Acknowledging God's sovereignty over man. It's a way of describing how God determines what happens in history, but at the same time not removing man's will or choices.

So I think that God was or rather Cyrus was doing exactly what Cyrus wanted to do for Cyrus's reasons. I don't know what his reasons were but Cyrus wanted the Jews to do this. He wanted the Israelites to go back.

But He was unaware of this but he was simultaneously doing exactly what God wanted him to do and My theory is God is doing this all the time with every leader with every decision. You see this passage in the phrase stirring up Cyrus's spirit.

I think this is the same exact idea that Exodus talks about when it talks about the Lord hardening Pharaoh's heart. I Know it's a basic idea. Both of these phrases describe God accomplishing his will through men who are responsible for their own choices.

The difference is one is for good and the other is for bad. Though in the end, of course, we all know that it's always for the good of God's people. See in this way, I believe God is constantly stirring the hearts of our leaders all the time in every situation.

Everything Barack Obama did, everything Donald Trump does, even down to the mayor of Rutland. God is either stirring their spirits or hardening their hearts, all to accomplish his own purposes for the good of his people.

Now most of us are Calvinists, not all of us, but we believe that logically, right? Like in our minds, it's like, yeah, God is stirring up people's hearts, he's hardening people's hearts, but like, there's a part of me, I'm a hardcore Calvinist, guys, I promise you, but there is a part of me that when I hear about that, just kind of recoils, it's like, I don't know if I feel good about God being so intimately involved in everything all the time, but if we take a step back, isn't that comforting?

Isn't that comforting? Because think about it, at any time when God thinks the time is right, at any moment, he could accomplish everything, everything that we were imagining before with that little example of Trump in the Congress and everything.

He could stir up people's spirits, everyone, even our family members that are unbelievers, even our friends, even our worst enemies, he could stir up anybody's heart, change their spirit, he could do it at any moment.

And he knows when the time is right to do what. And I know in my mind that we should be able to trust God with that. Proverbs 21, as we recited earlier, it says, the king's heart is a stream of water in the hand of the Lord.

He turns it wherever he will. This phrase is all-encompassing, right? I don't imagine that there's anything a king does, or anything anyone else does for that matter, that is out of bounds when it comes to this idea.

Whether turning it right or turning it left, whether moving it up or down, or stirring or hardening, God is always at work through our leaders, and so we should always have hope. We should always have faith that God will provide a good outcome for his people, as he does with Cyrus in our chapter this morning.

See, if Cyrus, king of Persia, is not out of God's reach, I promise you Donald J. Trump is not either. If Pharaoh wasn't out of reach, I guarantee you the next Democrat who gets elected president won't be out of reach either.

So another thing I noticed about this chapter, I thought this was so interesting that I decided to make a note of this. This wasn't like just a whim of King Cyrus, like it wasn't like, you know, he met a few Israelites and he found out, oh, they're good people, you know, yeah, you know, they're good people, I'm going to help them out a little bit, it's not just like he just kind of thought of this one day and decided to do it.

No, this was well thought out, this was planned, this was a serious deal, right? Look, verse 1 ends, and it says that this was his proclamation, but he also put it in writing, like this was, he got a speechwriter out and everything, and he put it in writing, this was legit, legal, this had the full weight of his kingdom and its authority behind it.

Listen to what this written proclamation said, verse 3, Cyrus, king of Persia says, whoever is among you of all his people, may his God be with him and let him go up to Jerusalem, which is in Judah, and rebuild the house of the Lord, the God of Israel, he is the God who is in Jerusalem, and let each survivor, in whatever place he sojourns, be assisted by the men of his place, with silver and gold, with goods and beasts.

You know what I like about this, it's so official, right, and he puts this in writing, this is not just a whim, this is not just a thought that he had, you know, just one day, this is official law, legally binding, what I like about this is that it proves that our efforts, our work, it actually matters.

It actually does matter, God doesn't, see, I think sometimes people hear what Calvinists say about God's sovereignty, and what they imagine is that he nullifies everything that people do, everything men do, God nullifies that and does his own thing, so it's like completely worthless what men do, and that's not how it works, that's not what is happening here, it's not that God overrides the will of his creatures, instead, he works through it, like this is a written, legally binding edict, right, this would be like an amendment to the constitution, say, you know, this written document, it's in the scripture, so it's God breathing that way, but when Cyrus got his speechwriter together and they put this out, it wasn't like those words were, he wasn't, Cyrus wasn't a prophet, right, his speechwriter wasn't a prophet when they wrote this law, so they didn't speak for God, but even though they weren't prophets, so his law wasn't scripture, he was still accomplishing God's ultimate, perfect, holy purposes through it.

It's sort of like, we understand like a Christian blog or like a YouTube video or even just a sermon, right, like, you know, when I write this sermon, when I prepare it, like, I'm not writing scripture, right, so my words aren't perfect, but God can still accomplish his perfect work through my efforts, even as meager as they are.

So there's legitimate, important, and effective things for God's kingdom that can happen through society, through diplomacy, even politics, believe it or not. So don't fall into the trap of thinking that politics is like this, this sort of like dirty, necessary evil, and so, you know, Christians shouldn't really care too much what happens there, like, I don't think that's true at all.

I don't think that's true at all. I think God's kingdom touches every area of life, including politics, the gospel applies to politics and politicians, and I think that politicians are stirred up by God and hardened by God all for his purposes.

We could probably have a debate on, you know, which politicians are stirred up and which ones are hardened, that would be interesting, but the point is, God accomplishes his will through our leaders and their edicts and their laws, whether good or bad, but again, it's ultimately always good for the church.

God’s Provision for His People in Exile

The last thing I noticed about this was just, just the amazing, amazing provision that God provides for his people. We've all heard stories of believers needing money or like needing food or something like that, and they fall into a time of need and they get abundant resources from God in response.

We've all heard stories like that. Maybe some of you have experienced a blessing like that, I know I have. Look at, this is just so amazing, listen, verse 9 goes into the amount of stuff that they get in order to accomplish this mission.

This is just an amazing thing. Talks about 30 basins of gold, 1 ,000 basins of silver, all together, all the vessels of gold and silver, it says there were 5 ,400. And this was all provided by the people of Persia for free.

All of it was either spoils of war that had been taken from them initially, Nebuchadnezzar stole a bunch of stuff from them, and they get it all back, and they get more than what was taken. What an amazing provision for God to miraculously give through a pagan leader.

Everything they need to rebuild, and then some. That's the kind of God we have. I didn't know, I wanted to look this up, but I didn't even know where to begin, but I wonder how many times in history, like a conqueror has come in, taken over a land, taken all your stuff, all your gold, all your silver, and then 70 years later, they're just like Oh, you can have it back.

Yeah, you can have it back. Take all the stuff we took, go back to your land, establish the homeland again. I wonder how many times that's happened. I'm not a historian, I didn't even try to research this, but I'm going to go out on a limb and say it's probably pretty rare.

Probably pretty rare. Guys, the point of all this is I think this story, and as we go along, you'll see it more and more, this story should give us ultimate confidence in God. Like seriously, this is a time for confidence.

I've said it before, the word confidence is a combination of some Latin phrases, confide with faith. Let's have strong faith in our God because he's got this. He's got this. I know that Trump is a little unstable at times.

I know that Obama, in some ways, people say he was pretty aggressively anti-Christian. I know. I know that North Korea claims to have their hand on the launch button, and there are polar vortexes and winter bombs coming our way.

I know that global warming will boil us to oblivion. I know that the tax plan will kill our economy. I know that net neutrality will be the end of Western civilization. I know. But let's all take a deep breath.

Here's the thing, it's not that none of that stuff matters. I don't want you to hear me say, oh yeah, North Korea, no big deal, it doesn't matter. It does matter, but God's got this, man. God's people have faced way worse, like the Persians.

Just study the Persians a little bit, Nebuchadnezzar, these guys, Pharaoh. These were brutal people, brutal. These situations that God's people found themselves in were just outrageous. They probably seemed impossible.

Everything was taken. Everything had been conquered. People had been killed. Everything had been stolen and destroyed. The people were surviving, but barely, they were captives. They weren't thriving.

But they had a prophecy that God would do something about it. But I think, put myself in that situation, right? They have this prophecy, God's going to take them out of captivity. But it had been 70 years.

Like, that's a lifetime for most people. Think about it, like, had God forgotten? I imagine being a young man in that time, and my parents have died since they've been in captivity because it's been 70 years, and thinking, man, maybe my parents got it wrong.

Because I've probably never seen the scrolls, and I probably can't even read. I haven't seen the scrolls, so maybe the prophecy was just wrong. And then all of a sudden, just all of a sudden, Cyrus just says, you know what?

You guys can go back. You guys can go back. Just a new king comes up, there's a new edict, and just like that, God accomplishes what he said he would accomplish. Things are different. So let us have confidence.

Let us be with strong faith that God will do it again. I know he will do it again. We know this in our minds. We know that it could happen, like, logically we know, but let's believe it in our hearts.

So I hope that the book of Ezra will inspire this kind of faith in you, and let's just ask God that he would do that.