Ezra Chapter 1

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

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 father's how how is it heads of the father's 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

To me and 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 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 bazaar 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 Think that's pretty fair assessment of where we are as a society

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 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 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

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 gonna 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 if 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 what 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

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 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 where 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

The first thing I want to look at is this idea of God 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 or 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? And 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 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 Think it conveys the same 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 others for bad

Though in the end, of course, we all know it is 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 is stirring up people's hearts he's hardening people's hearts But like there's a part of me

I'm a 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 our family members that are unbelievers even our friends even our worst enemies

He could stir up anybody's heart change their spirit he can 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

See this phrase is all -encompassing right? Like 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 turn or 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. This is I thought this was so interesting that it 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 that they're good people, you know, yeah, you know They're good people.

I'm gonna help him out a little bit It's like it's not just like he just kind of thought of this one day and and decided to do it No, this was well thought out.

This was planned. This was 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 It's 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,

I like about this it's 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

But 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 they what they imagine is that he nullifies everything that that 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 this written document it's in the scripture So it's God breathed in that way But but when when when

Cyrus got his his his speechwriter together and they put this out It wasn't like those words were he wasn't

Cyrus wasn't a prophet right the speechwriter wasn't a prophet When they wrote this law, it's so they didn't speak for God But even though they weren't prophets so the though so his law wasn't

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 a YouTube video or even just the sermon, right?

Like, you know when I 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 that's 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 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're falling to a time of need and they get abundant resources from God and response

We've all heard stories like that. Maybe some of you have experienced a blessing like that. I know I have Look, this is just so amazing

Listen, the verse 9 goes into the 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 a thousand basins of silver it all

All all together all the vessels of gold and silver it says there were five thousand four hundred 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 the epic another 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 taking over a land taking 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 You know the the homeland again.

I don't wonder how many times that's happened. I I'm not a historian I didn't even try to research this

But I'm gonna go out on a limb and say it's probably pretty rare probably pretty rare guys the point of all this

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 poor little 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

He said here's the thing. It's not that none of that stuff matters. Like I don't want you to hear me say Oh, yeah, North Korea.

No big deal doesn't matter. It does matter But God's got this man God's people have faced way worse

Like the Persians like just study the Persians a little bit Nebuchadnezzar these guys Pharaoh.

These were brutal people brutal these situations that that God's people found themselves in were

Just outrageous they they probably seemed impossible everything was taken everything had been conquered

People had been killed everything had been stolen and destroyed and the people were surviving but like 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 gonna 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 imagined being a young man in that time and my parents, you know 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 Just let's just ask