SPEAKER_01: Picking up our study in the book of Ezra, thankful for Ryan for teaching last week and uh really introducing Ezra to us, showing us his importance in redemptive history, and that sets us up for tonight.
SPEAKER_01: Let me pray before we dive into God's word again.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, we are thankful for your word and we pray that it would be active in our hearts tonight.
SPEAKER_01: Build up our thinking about you, build up our theology about you and what you've done for us, so that you can build up our worship towards you, that we can live better in light of the knowledge of what you have done for us, who you are, how you've revealed yourself in Christ Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: We pray that you would do that tonight for us through your word, which is living and active.
SPEAKER_01: We ask this in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: Well, Ezra 8 is a really neat chapter.
SPEAKER_01: This is uh a chapter that has got a hold of my attention at the very beginning of the book Ezra.
SPEAKER_01: I feel like so much of what's going on in the book of Ezra comes into focus in chapter 8.
SPEAKER_01: Uh, until now we're kind of looking at things in a distance, and then in chapter 8, the distant and the near collide for us.
SPEAKER_01: And so I want to look at this chapter from two perspectives tonight.
SPEAKER_01: I want to look at Ezra 8 from inside of Ezra 8, and then from above Ezra 8 looking down on it.
SPEAKER_01: So we're gonna go through the chapter verse by verse tonight, and we're gonna look at what is described inside of this chapter as if we're going through the narrative with Ezra.
SPEAKER_01: And then after that, if the Lord gives us more time at the end tonight, we'll go above the chapter and look at how Ezra 8 fits in the context of the Bible, which I think is just critical to understand.
SPEAKER_01: The focal point of this chapter really is a bold prayer.
SPEAKER_01: Everything in Ezra is moving towards the middle of the chapter, from the beginning to the middle, and from the end, it goes from the middle down to the end.
SPEAKER_01: The middle of this chapter is Ezra's prayer that God would protect him and would lead all of these people and all of this treasure into Israel.
SPEAKER_01: Ezra is doing a really a staggering journey.
SPEAKER_01: It's a journey of, I mean, a thousand miles.
SPEAKER_01: He's got five thousand people with him, and he's walking across the desert in the middle of the summer.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, that's really what's what's happening in this book.
SPEAKER_01: It is incredibly hot, and he has thousands of people with him of varying ages, and he's leading them through really the wilderness.
SPEAKER_01: In a sense, this is, as Ryan pointed out, last week, almost a second Moses kind of experience here, where Ezra is leading his people through the wilderness into a dramatic entrance into the promised land.
SPEAKER_01: There's lots of people, and there is lots of money.
SPEAKER_01: Thirty tons of gold and silver they have with them.
SPEAKER_01: There is no army with them.
SPEAKER_01: We'll look at why tonight.
SPEAKER_01: They have no protection except for the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: And so the middle of this chapter, down in verse 21, Ezra proclaims a fast at the river there for a safe journey to seek from God a safe journey for ourselves, our children, and all our goods.
SPEAKER_01: And so that's kind of the focus of this chapter.
SPEAKER_01: And so this chapter provides us from the inside an illustration of the kind of prayer God answers.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, spoiler alert, Ezra makes it through.
SPEAKER_01: He gets through the wilderness, he brings the people safely into the promised lands.
SPEAKER_01: He doesn't lose any of the golden treasure.
SPEAKER_01: He survives to write the book.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's like when the hero of the movie is in peril.
SPEAKER_01: You know how it's going to end.
SPEAKER_01: That's what's happening here.
SPEAKER_01: Ezra survives to write the book that's named after him.
SPEAKER_01: So we know that God answers this prayer.
SPEAKER_01: And so backing up to the beginning of the chapter, I want to go through this chapter, looking at what kind of prayer it is that God answers.
SPEAKER_01: It's fascinating to me that we are introduced to Ezra.
SPEAKER_01: He's introduced to us last week in chapter 7 as a preacher.
SPEAKER_01: He is skilled in the word of the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: He is skilled to study the word of God, to understand it, to apply it to himself, and then to teach it to others.
SPEAKER_01: That's the flow.
SPEAKER_01: And yet we don't meet a sermon of his yet.
SPEAKER_01: We haven't been introduced to how he's preaching yet.
SPEAKER_01: The first way we see him interacting with his people is through prayer.
SPEAKER_01: It was D.
SPEAKER_01: Al Moody who said, I'd rather be able to pray than to be a great preacher.
SPEAKER_01: And I think that's true.
SPEAKER_01: The way a person prays says more about them than how they preach.
SPEAKER_01: You know, Jesus Christ never taught his disciples how to preach a sermon.
SPEAKER_01: He didn't say three points in an alliterated outline.
SPEAKER_01: He didn't say whether or not you should use PowerPoint.
SPEAKER_01: I think you should sometimes.
SPEAKER_01: This PowerPoint.
SPEAKER_01: But he did teach his disciples how to pray.
SPEAKER_01: He taught them how to pray.
SPEAKER_01: And that's why it's fascinating to me that you meet Ezra not behind a pulpit, although he's introduced as a preacher of Israel.
SPEAKER_01: You meet him not delivering a sermon, although he certainly does.
SPEAKER_01: We'll see his sermons next week in the week to come.
SPEAKER_01: But you're introduced to him praying for the God's help on his people.
SPEAKER_01: So the first kind of prayer that God answers is a prayer that's from his people.
SPEAKER_01: And this charts of chapter 8, verse 1.
SPEAKER_01: These are the heads of their father's houses.
SPEAKER_01: Remember, Ezra has thousands of people.
SPEAKER_01: He's leading them into the promised lands.
SPEAKER_01: And they're going to be introduced to us by a family.
SPEAKER_01: This is the genealogy of those who went up with me from Babylonia in the reign of Arta Xerces the king.
SPEAKER_01: Remember, there's some chronology in Ezra where we go forward and backwards, but this is during Artaxerces.
SPEAKER_01: This is 80 years or so after the return in Ezra chapter 2.
SPEAKER_01: We saw a genealogy at the beginning of the book.
SPEAKER_01: Eighty years have gone by then.
SPEAKER_01: This is the second return.
SPEAKER_01: But, well, I'll read you the names first.
SPEAKER_01: Remember another thing I learned last week.
SPEAKER_01: It doesn't matter how you pronounce them.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 2 of the sons of Phineas and Gershem, of the sons of Ithmiar, Daniel, of the sons of David, Hatush, of the sons of Shekaniah, who was of the sons of Parosh, Zechariah, of whom were registered 150 men, the sons of Pahath Moab, Eliahaniah, the son of Zarariah, and with him two hundred men, the sons of Zatu, Shechaniah the son of Jahaziel, and with him three hundred men, of the sons of Aden, Ebed the son of Jonathan, and with him fifty men, of the sons of Elam, Jeshiah, the son of Athaliah, and with him seventy men, of the sons of Shephathiah, Zebediah, the son of Michael, and with him eighty men, of the sons of Joab, Obadiah the son of Jehael, and with him two hundred and eighteen men, of the sons of Bani, Shalmaith, and the son of Jephaniah, and with him a hundred and sixty men, of the sons of Bibi, Zechariah, the son of Bebi, and with him twenty-eight men, of the sons of Azgad, Johan, and the son of Hakatan, and with him a hundred and ten men, and the sons of Adenikim, and those who came later, their names being Eliphat, Jewel, and Shemaiah, and with him sixty men, of the sons of Bigvieh, and I have no idea how you would even say that in Hebrew, Uthiah and Zakir, and with him seventy men.
SPEAKER_01: What's interesting about this list, you take it all together, you tally it up, you're dealing with about 1,500 people.
SPEAKER_01: They're very much different than other genealogies.
SPEAKER_01: These are listed as the heads of their family, and it's implied for a couple of them, it says even to the end of their family.
SPEAKER_01: In other words, for some of them, their whole family came, but you don't get all their numbers.
SPEAKER_01: You just get the numbers of the actual men of the family who are coming.
SPEAKER_01: So it's reasonable to deduce from here.
SPEAKER_01: 1,500 men, you're up to at least 3,000.
SPEAKER_01: We're assuming most of them are married, add a kid or two each of them, and you're dealing with five or six thousand people in this second return.
SPEAKER_01: The other interesting thing about this, there are 12 separate family names.
SPEAKER_01: All of them are the same family names from Ezra chapter 2.
SPEAKER_01: Not the same people.
SPEAKER_01: Obviously, we're 80 years later and those people came, but there is a repeat here.
SPEAKER_01: In other words, many of the families came before 80 years ago, but this is very similar to, I think, modern immigration, where a family might send one person into the new a new land, and that one person might even be supported by people back in the home country for a while until they get a job and they start to develop income, and soon that one person starts sending money back, and that one person starts bringing his family with him slowly but surely.
SPEAKER_01: And if you jump forward 80 years, you have a whole new family there, a whole new wave of immigration to tag along with the first person who came 80 years earlier.
SPEAKER_01: That's the way it is in the U.S.
SPEAKER_01: today, and that is certainly the way this return to Babylon or from Babylon was going.
SPEAKER_01: These are the same families that came 80 years earlier, but now they're bringing in all of the kids with them.
SPEAKER_01: That's the image of the families here.
SPEAKER_01: The other interesting thing, all 12 of these families are the same 12 families from Ezra, chapter 2.
SPEAKER_01: And there had to be a little bit of work, by the way.
SPEAKER_01: Some of them are combined to get to the number 12, and Ezra's counting here.
SPEAKER_01: But it's interesting.
SPEAKER_01: Ezra works hard at making this genealogy fit into 12 groups.
SPEAKER_01: And I think it's obvious why.
SPEAKER_01: He's picturing himself here as returning to repopulate the promised land.
SPEAKER_01: Israel was populated the first time by the 12 tribes.
SPEAKER_01: The second time it will it will not be the 12 tribes legitimately, but it will be these 12 families from Judah and Benjamin.
SPEAKER_01: They will come and they will repopulate the promised land with their 12 families.
SPEAKER_01: This is very much an indication that God is re-establishing his people in the land.
SPEAKER_01: Remember the promise to Abraham.
SPEAKER_01: The Abraham would have people, he would have land, and he would have a gospel, a blessing to the nations.
SPEAKER_01: And well, Ezra is going back to the promised land with the gospel, he's going back with the lands, and now he's enumerating the people to the twelve sons, the twelve tribes of Israel.
SPEAKER_01: Just as Jacob had his twelve sons, Ezra is bringing forward these twelve tribes.
SPEAKER_01: And so our first indication here is that God hears the prayers that come from his people.
SPEAKER_01: Ezra is very much aware that God has extended his ear to him because he is bringing God's people back to God's place, back to God's lands.
SPEAKER_01: The second kind of prayer that God hears is from his priests.
SPEAKER_01: From his priests.
SPEAKER_01: I gathered them in verse 15 at the river that runs to Ahava, and there were camped three days.
SPEAKER_01: As I reviewed the people and the priests, I found there were none of the sons of Levi.
SPEAKER_01: Can you imagine?
SPEAKER_01: Thousands of people gathered there, and there's no Levites.
SPEAKER_01: They need Levites.
SPEAKER_01: They can't do the ministry in the temple the right way.
SPEAKER_01: This is the motivating factor for getting back to the promised land, remember?
SPEAKER_01: They, as the psalmist says, How can I worship God in Babylon?
SPEAKER_01: How can I worship God in a foreign land?
SPEAKER_01: There's no temple there.
SPEAKER_01: You can't do the Passover there.
SPEAKER_01: You can't sing the Psalms of Ascent unless you're ascending to Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_01: You need the priests to worship God.
SPEAKER_01: And Ezra looks around and nobody brought the priests.
SPEAKER_01: Now, Levites and priests are not exactly overlapping groups.
SPEAKER_01: Priests were, in a sense, a subset of Levites.
SPEAKER_01: Levi had four sons, many of the priests descended from Levites.
SPEAKER_01: All of the priests were Levites, but not all Levites were priests.
SPEAKER_01: And so Ezra is looking around here and he's noting that there is no none of the sons of Levi, if there are any, that are actually priests.
SPEAKER_01: So they can't do the temple worship.
SPEAKER_01: And we saw some of the sons of Levi enumerated earlier, so we know there's some of the family there, but there's just no priests.
SPEAKER_01: So Ezra sends out an SOS.
SPEAKER_01: He sends out a distress signal, verse 16.
SPEAKER_01: I sent for Eliezer, Ariel, Shemiah, Elnathan, Jarev, Elnathan, Nathan, Zechariah, and Meshualim, leading men, and for Joriarib and Elnathan, who were men of insight.
SPEAKER_01: And I sent them to Edo, the leading man in the place at Cassaphia, telling them what to say to Edo and his brothers and the temple servants at the plat place of Cassaphia, namely to send us ministers for the house of our God.
SPEAKER_01: Cassaphia is a place where it seems like many of the Levites in exile took up residence.
SPEAKER_01: It's about twenty miles or so outside of modern-day Baghdad, and this is the place where the Levites had gone into hiding.
SPEAKER_01: And so Ezra sends a message there.
SPEAKER_01: Remember, he's got thousands of people camped up by a Babylonian river.
SPEAKER_01: This is no KOA campgrounds here.
SPEAKER_01: They're dependent upon food and money from families that are staying behind.
SPEAKER_01: But they have to delay.
SPEAKER_01: He's got to send a message far away that we need Levites.
SPEAKER_01: There's a city of them.
SPEAKER_01: The message gets to Eto, and he dispatches Levites.
SPEAKER_01: By the way, interesting name that may sound familiar to you, Sherubiah.
SPEAKER_01: He's mentioned seven times in the book of Ezra and Nehemiah, and almost every time, twice here in this passage, he's introduced as one of the leading teachers of Israel.
SPEAKER_01: He did not go in the return.
SPEAKER_01: He stays here in this Ezra's return, but he does gather up Levites and send them back.
SPEAKER_01: It's so important for Ezra to have priests, because without the priests, they can't do the temple worship.
SPEAKER_01: You see this at the end of verse 16.
SPEAKER_01: We needed ministers for the house of our God.
SPEAKER_01: How can they minister without a priest?
SPEAKER_01: The third kind of prayer that God answers.
SPEAKER_01: It's from their dependents.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 18 By the good hand of our God on us.
SPEAKER_01: What a great phrase.
SPEAKER_01: By the good hand of our God on us, they brought us a man of discretion, the sons of Mahlai, the sons of Levi, a son of Israel, namely Sherubiah with his sons and kinsmen, also Hashabiah, and with him Jeshiah, the son of Mariah, with his kinsmen, and their son twenty.
SPEAKER_01: Besides two hundred and twenty of the temple servants, whom David and his officials set apart to attend the Levites, these were all mentioned by name.
SPEAKER_01: And so now he's got a couple hundred Levites.
SPEAKER_01: This is enough to staff out the temple.
SPEAKER_01: And so as a result of that I proclaimed a fast there, Ezra writes in verse twenty-one, at the river Ahava, that we might humble ourselves before our God, to seek from him a safe journey for ourselves, our children, and all our goods.
SPEAKER_01: For I was ashamed to ask the king for a band of soldiers and horsemen to protect us against the enemy on our way, since we had told the king, the hand of our God is for good on all who seek him, and the power of his wrath is against all who forsake him.
SPEAKER_01: So we fasted and implored our God for this, and he listened to our entreaty.
SPEAKER_01: There is a lot in that little paragraph right there that is very profound with implications for our own life here.
SPEAKER_01: Do you see what Ezra is saying?
SPEAKER_01: He has a lot of money.
SPEAKER_01: We'll see that in a second.
SPEAKER_01: Thirty tons of gold and silver.
SPEAKER_01: I think 25 tons of gold and five tons of silver.
SPEAKER_01: That's a lot of cash.
SPEAKER_01: He has a lot of people.
SPEAKER_01: He is ripe for attack, ripe for plundering.
SPEAKER_01: He has enemies everywhere.
SPEAKER_01: We have already met their enemies in Ezra II all the way through Ezra 6.
SPEAKER_01: We've encountered enemies at every turn.
SPEAKER_01: There are those that hate the Jews and don't want the temple rebuilt.
SPEAKER_01: So what's to stop them from attacking them and taking the gold?
SPEAKER_01: Ezra needs a military escort.
SPEAKER_01: The king would most certainly give him one.
SPEAKER_01: After all, this is the king's cash.
SPEAKER_01: The king is the one who gave the money for this.
SPEAKER_01: The king wants temple worship to be successful.
SPEAKER_01: So if Ezra were to ask, he would get it most certainly.
SPEAKER_01: So why doesn't he ask for a military escort?
SPEAKER_01: He says he was ashamed to, and we don't get the full background of Ezra's conversation with Arta Xerxes, except what Ezra gives you here.
SPEAKER_01: Apparently, Ezra was one of Artaxerces' main advisors, and Ezra asked if he could go back to Israel and help the people repopulate, and Artaxerces said yes.
SPEAKER_01: Now you get a little window into the conversation.
SPEAKER_01: He asked by saying, Yahweh is the real God, and he is sovereign over the world, and he cares for his people, so I need to go back to his temple.
SPEAKER_01: You see this conversation in more detail with Nehemiah when Nehemiah has to ask to go back.
SPEAKER_01: He has the same kind of conversation.
SPEAKER_01: Obviously, Ezra highlighted the sovereignty of God over the world in his appeal to Arta Xerces, saying that God does care for the world.
SPEAKER_01: The hand of God is good on those who seek him, Ezra said.
SPEAKER_01: So how can you tell the emperor that my God is sovereign over us?
SPEAKER_01: By the way, can we get some police just to keep watch too?
SPEAKER_01: Trust the Lord but carry heat kind of attitude.
SPEAKER_01: Ezra says, I can't do it.
SPEAKER_01: I can't do it.
SPEAKER_01: I can't look him in the eye and say, Give me some weapons.
SPEAKER_01: I can't do it.
SPEAKER_01: My hypocrisy has some limits, Ezra says.
SPEAKER_01: This does not mean that it is wrong to ask for a military escort.
SPEAKER_01: It does not mean that it's it's wrong to, you know, have security guards at church, to use a very practical example at hand.
SPEAKER_01: We say that God is sovereign and God cares for us and watches over us, but we have security guards at church.
SPEAKER_01: Isn't that a contradiction?
SPEAKER_01: No, and let me play this out.
SPEAKER_01: Because in Nehemiah, Nehemiah is in the same kind of situation where he is going to bring a military escort, or he's going to bring gold and people back to Israel, and he does ask for a military escort.
SPEAKER_01: He does ask for help and for guards.
SPEAKER_01: Why does he get to have guards, but Ezra doesn't?
SPEAKER_01: Why is it hypocritical for Ezra to ask for police help but not Nehemiah?
SPEAKER_01: Well, the difference is simple.
SPEAKER_01: Ezra was going back as a priest.
SPEAKER_01: He was going back as a minister to the people.
SPEAKER_01: He was going back as a religious leader on a mission, so to speak.
SPEAKER_01: Whereas Nehemiah was going back as a political leader.
SPEAKER_01: He was one of the king's advisors, and he was going back to be designated by the king as a ruler in Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_01: So he went as a government worker, and so it's fitting for him to have government protection.
SPEAKER_01: Whereas Ezra is not going as a government worker.
SPEAKER_01: He seems to have resigned his post.
SPEAKER_01: He's going back as a priest.
SPEAKER_01: And so he doesn't want to ask for government protection and to Americanize it.
SPEAKER_01: This is why it's good that we do have armed security at church, but not the pastor.
SPEAKER_01: Not the elders.
SPEAKER_01: The elders get to trust the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: Although I'm pretty sure a couple of the pastors are packing hate too.
SPEAKER_01: This is an example of prayer from dependence.
SPEAKER_01: Where Ezra gets to tell the Lord, I'm broken, God, I'm dependent.
SPEAKER_01: If you don't watch out for us, we're going down.
SPEAKER_01: We're going down.
SPEAKER_01: And the Lord hears his prayer.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 23, we fasted and implored God for this, and he listens to our entreaty.
SPEAKER_01: He listened to our entreaty.
SPEAKER_01: And we see why this is so important here.
SPEAKER_01: I set apart twelve of the leading priests, Sherebih, Hashabiah, and ten of their kinsmen with him.
SPEAKER_01: I weighed out from them silver and gold in the vessels of the offering of the house of our God, and the king of his counselors and his lords, and all Israel present that it offered.
SPEAKER_01: I weighed out into their hands 650 talents of silver, and silver vessels were two in her talents, a hundred talents of gold.
SPEAKER_01: So 25 tons of silver, five tons of gold is what that is.
SPEAKER_01: Twenty bowls I think I got it opposite earlier.
SPEAKER_01: Twenty bowls of gold worth a thousand dericks, which is this massive coin with Darius on it.
SPEAKER_01: That's why it's called a deric.
SPEAKER_01: It's a massive coin.
SPEAKER_01: It's an insane amount of value there.
SPEAKER_01: And two vessels of fine, bright bronze as precious as gold.
SPEAKER_01: And I said to them, You are holy to Yahweh, and the vessels are holy, and the silver and the gold are a free will offering to Yahweh, the God of your fathers.
SPEAKER_01: This is one of the few places the word free will is used in the Bible, by the way.
SPEAKER_01: Free will in the New Testament is used ironically.
SPEAKER_01: Free will in the Old Testament is used as a sacrifice.
SPEAKER_01: The Old Testament describes certain sacrifices, and if you do a sacrifice outside of those sacrifices, it's a free will sacrifice.
SPEAKER_01: And that's what this is.
SPEAKER_01: This is a massive amount of gold from a Persian king to build, rebuild the temple.
SPEAKER_01: That's not prescribed in the Bible.
SPEAKER_01: There's no commands for when a Persian king sends you back, he should send this amount of gold.
SPEAKER_01: So this is all a free will offering, by the way.
SPEAKER_01: And it is massive amounts of money.
SPEAKER_01: It's all because of Yahweh, it says in verse 28, the gar the God of your fathers.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 29, guard them and keep them with you until you weigh them before the chief priests and the Levites and the heads of the fathers' houses in Israel at Jerusalem, within the chambers of Yahweh's house.
SPEAKER_01: You catch what he's he's doing there?
SPEAKER_01: He's saying, I mean, they just spent three days praying and fasting for protection.
SPEAKER_01: After this fast for protection, he then hands them gold, counts it out in front of all of them, and says, just so you know, I'm recounting it in the temple in Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_01: This is a way of saying, you're going to make it there.
SPEAKER_01: You're going to make it there.
SPEAKER_01: This is a soldier who's getting deployed, and before he goes off to a combat zone, his wife hands him a note or a picture and says, I want you to bring this back.
SPEAKER_01: Or an empty, I've heard of people doing this.
SPEAKER_01: Here's an empty, uh, an empty jar.
SPEAKER_01: I want you to bring back to me sand from where you're going.
SPEAKER_01: No, what's laid in that?
SPEAKER_01: Do you really want the sand?
SPEAKER_01: No, you don't want the sand.
SPEAKER_01: But what's laden in that is I'm giving you this jar.
SPEAKER_01: You are bringing it back.
SPEAKER_01: You will come back.
SPEAKER_01: Do you hear me?
SPEAKER_01: It's that kind of attitude.
SPEAKER_01: That's what Ezra is doing here to the group of people.
SPEAKER_01: He's saying, Here is the gold, and you will count it out in front of me again, only next time in the temple.
SPEAKER_01: We are going to survive this.
SPEAKER_01: But you just get this sense of this urgency, this desperation with them as they head out.
SPEAKER_01: Well, they're doing this, and God is going to hear their prayer.
SPEAKER_01: He's going to hear their prayer and give them protection.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 34, the whole of this was counted and weighed, and the weight of everything was recorded.
SPEAKER_01: This leads to the fourth indication of kind of prayer that God answers for worship.
SPEAKER_01: God answers prayer from his people, from his priests, from their dependents, and for their worship.
SPEAKER_01: That's the purpose of all of this.
SPEAKER_01: It's all for the worship of Yahweh.
SPEAKER_01: At that time, verse 35, those who had come from captivity and the return exiles offered burnt offerings to the God of Israel, twelve bulls for all Israel, 96 rams, 77 lambs as a sin offering, twelve male goats.
SPEAKER_01: All this was a burnt offering to Yahweh.
SPEAKER_01: This all comes as a form of worship.
SPEAKER_01: And I think I skipped a few verses earlier.
SPEAKER_01: Jog your eyes back up to verse 32.
SPEAKER_01: We came to Jerusalem, and there we remained for three days.
SPEAKER_01: And on the fourth day they went into the house of Yahweh, and they recounted all the gold, and it was all exactly as they said.
SPEAKER_01: They arrived, verse 31 says, on the twelfth day of the first month.
SPEAKER_01: That would be just a few days before.
SPEAKER_01: Passover, August 4th, actually is what commentaries say that date is.
SPEAKER_01: They would have averaged nine miles a day for several months of journey.
SPEAKER_01: And when they got there, they waited three days.
SPEAKER_01: I think that's likely because they had to rest, or likely because they arrived there on a maybe a Thursday or Friday and they didn't want to come in as the Sabbath was approaching.
SPEAKER_01: So they waited outside Jerusalem three days.
SPEAKER_01: And they enter, they re-count out the gold.
SPEAKER_01: This is all designed for the worship of God.
SPEAKER_01: They were not praying for just this normal protection.
SPEAKER_01: They weren't praying out of a sense of arrogance.
SPEAKER_01: They weren't praying just for things they wanted.
SPEAKER_01: They were praying that God would help them worship in a righteous way.
SPEAKER_01: And so God hears their prayer.
SPEAKER_01: And then finally, God answers prayers, not just for worship, but through their sacrifices.
SPEAKER_01: This all culminates in verse 35.
SPEAKER_01: They begin offering burnt offerings to the God of Israel.
SPEAKER_01: They offer twelve bulls for all Israel, 96 rams, 77 lambs.
SPEAKER_01: So, in addition to thousands of people, I mean they have a circus with them as a sin offering, 12 milgoats.
SPEAKER_01: Remember, one for each tribe, one for each family that is back.
SPEAKER_01: All this was a burnt offering to Yahweh.
SPEAKER_01: They also delivered the king's commissions.
SPEAKER_01: So apparently the king sent papers with Ezra, government commissions that he's going to elevate different people in Israel.
SPEAKER_01: Remember, this whole building project had been shut down for decades by Israel's enemies that were government officials in the province beyond the river.
SPEAKER_01: So now the king has given Ezra paperwork for them to fill out.
SPEAKER_01: Explain yourselves.
SPEAKER_01: Promotions for some, demotions for the others.
SPEAKER_01: We don't know the content of them.
SPEAKER_01: But Ezra delivers them.
SPEAKER_01: All the king's commissions to the king's satraps and the governors of the province beyond the river, and they aided the people in the house of God.
SPEAKER_01: Part of it was commanding them to work for the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: This all culminates in these sacrifices.
SPEAKER_01: Bulls and goats and lambs.
SPEAKER_01: All of them would have their necks cut, would be bled out.
SPEAKER_01: They would be butchered.
SPEAKER_01: These priests were in many cases just butchers who then would burn the meat in the prescribed fashion, burn the fat, the incense rises as a pleasing smell to the Lord as they sprinkle the blood in the temple.
SPEAKER_01: That's the scene that would have taken out there.
SPEAKER_01: So that's this chapter from the inside.
SPEAKER_01: When you look at this chapter from the inside out, what you see is the kind of prayer that God answers, a desperate prayer from desperate people for their worship.
SPEAKER_01: But as you look above this chapter, I want you to see the main theme that is in this chapter is that of the priesthood.
SPEAKER_01: That Ezra needed priests.
SPEAKER_01: You see the genealogy in here?
SPEAKER_01: No priest.
SPEAKER_01: He hits the panic button.
SPEAKER_01: He summons priests.
SPEAKER_01: He gets to go back into the promised land.
SPEAKER_01: Now with priests, the priests then do their offerings and their sacrifices.
SPEAKER_01: The priesthood is so critical in the Old Testament.
SPEAKER_01: You cannot worship God without a priest.
SPEAKER_01: And I submit to you that the same thing is true at this very day.
SPEAKER_01: And this is one of the main distinguishing features between us and the Roman Catholics.
SPEAKER_01: The Roman Catholics, they have a priest.
SPEAKER_01: And oftentimes when you hear of priest, you think of that kind of person, you know, with the backwards collar on.
SPEAKER_01: And the Roman Catholic Church, ordination is one of the seven sacraments.
SPEAKER_01: It's how the other sacraments are dispensed.
SPEAKER_01: Without a priest, you get access to no grace.
SPEAKER_01: You can't have penance, you can't have confession, you can't have confirmation, you can't have communion, you can't have last rites, you can't have marriage without a priest in the Catholic system.
SPEAKER_01: It's so critical to them because they, I think, rightly understand that you need a priest for worship.
SPEAKER_01: They wrongly understand that it is their ordinance of ordination that empowers somebody to be a priest.
SPEAKER_01: In the Catholic world, you look at a priest as if he is God for you.
SPEAKER_01: That's why he's called father.
SPEAKER_01: This is why Catholics call priests father, because he's representing God.
SPEAKER_01: When you're interacting with a priest, you're interacting with God Himself.
SPEAKER_01: That's not the kind of priest the Bible describes.
SPEAKER_01: It's not God coming to us.
SPEAKER_01: In the Bible, a priest is someone who is put out from you, who then is the bridge between you and God.
SPEAKER_01: A priest is very much a mediator.
SPEAKER_01: He mediates the holiness of God to the sinfulness of people, but he is a priest from among you.
SPEAKER_01: This is why the Old Testament makes it very clear time and time again.
SPEAKER_01: As people, as priests, as priests, as people, they reflect each other.
SPEAKER_01: When the priests are corrupt, the people will be corrupt.
SPEAKER_01: This is one of the ways the Israelites were rebuked in Jeremiah chapter 2.
SPEAKER_01: We saw this morning.
SPEAKER_01: Nevertheless, you do need a priest.
SPEAKER_01: This is a truth that is taught from Genesis 4 all the way through the book of Revelation.
SPEAKER_01: A priest, in its most basic sense, is a mediator.
SPEAKER_01: A priest has to be sanctified, he has to be holy because he is the bridge in that sense between God and man.
SPEAKER_01: And to get your, I think, your mind around the Bible is the elevation of the priesthood, I want you to see just in one screen here how the priesthood really, I use the word evolved, evolved through scripture here.
SPEAKER_01: At the beginning, every person was their own priest.
SPEAKER_01: And you see this outside the Garden of Eden.
SPEAKER_01: Cain and Abel, and by extension, Adam and Eve, were required to offer their sacrifices.
SPEAKER_01: They had sinned, and so blood had to be shed.
SPEAKER_01: When it was just Adam and Eve, God sacrificed the first animal.
SPEAKER_01: In that sense, God acted as the priest for them.
SPEAKER_01: God took the sacrifice, killed the animal, skinned the animal, and applied the covering to Adam and Eve directly.
SPEAKER_01: But from that point forward, God was not in the sacrificing business.
SPEAKER_01: People were.
SPEAKER_01: People had to bring their sacrifices.
SPEAKER_01: Without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness of sin, because sin results in death.
SPEAKER_01: The wages of sin is.
SPEAKER_01: That does not just come from Romans, my friends.
SPEAKER_01: That comes from Genesis, when God tells the people, the day that you sin, you will, and you die spiritually when you sin.
SPEAKER_01: That's the point.
SPEAKER_01: Spiritual death produces physical death.
SPEAKER_01: It's not reversed.
SPEAKER_01: When sin enters the world, people die spiritually.
SPEAKER_01: Because they are spiritually dead, it works out physical death as well.
SPEAKER_01: When the New Testament, when Paul says the wages of sin is death, he's not even just talking about spiritual death.
SPEAKER_01: He's not even talking about physical death.
SPEAKER_01: I believe he's talking about eternal death.
SPEAKER_01: That the wages of sin is spiritual death, which leads to physical death, which in turn leads to hell.
SPEAKER_01: That's the full wages of sin.
SPEAKER_01: However, because sin produces death, God forgives it through the death of a substitute.
SPEAKER_01: This is why you cannot bring a grain offering to have your sins forgiven, because a grain offering does not involve blood.
SPEAKER_01: You may have pricked your finger at a weeding your garden, does not count.
SPEAKER_01: You need to have the blood of a sacrifice, a substitute who dies in your place.
SPEAKER_01: That's the kind of sacrifice that is required for your sins to be forgiven.
SPEAKER_01: Now, before the flood, every person brought forward their own sacrifice.
SPEAKER_01: Cain refused to do that, by the way.
SPEAKER_01: He refused to acknowledge that sin required death.
SPEAKER_01: He rejected that outright.
SPEAKER_01: Abel did.
SPEAKER_01: So it was not an element of, it was not an issue of revelation.
SPEAKER_01: God had clearly revealed what was required of them.
SPEAKER_01: And this is how God rebukes Cain, too.
SPEAKER_01: Remember, he says, Cain, I've told you what I want from you.
SPEAKER_01: I want the sin offering, God tells Cain, there is a sin offering, it is waiting for you.
SPEAKER_01: Go get it and offer it.
SPEAKER_01: Instead, Cain tells God, You want your sin offering?
SPEAKER_01: I'll give you a sin offering and brings him the blood of Abel instead, which cries out from the ground for vengeance.
SPEAKER_01: Well, all the way until the flood, the idea was that people brought their own sacrifices.
SPEAKER_01: They were their own priests.
SPEAKER_01: But after the flood, all the way to Exodus, you see a change.
SPEAKER_01: From that point forward, you saw fathers acting as the priest of the family.
SPEAKER_01: You saw the heads of the household were the priests.
SPEAKER_01: And this really comes into focus when the Israelites are in Egypt, although you see evidence of it throughout the patriarchal period.
SPEAKER_01: But when they're in Egypt, is where this becomes critical, because the Passover is coming, the angel of death is coming, and the head of every household is the one who will sacrifice the lamb.
SPEAKER_01: This was very much a family activity.
SPEAKER_01: I've brought this out to you before, but I want to repeat it because I want to make sure you just see the grotesque nature of this.
SPEAKER_01: They were supposed to bring the lamb into their house, a young lamb, for a week before it was sacrificed.
SPEAKER_01: The lamb would be named, of course.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, we have these gerbils that are barely sentient beings, and my daughters already love them.
SPEAKER_01: I don't even think they can count.
SPEAKER_01: They could be a wind-up battery-operated creature, but no, it's alive, I guess.
SPEAKER_01: Imagine a lamb.
SPEAKER_01: You have a lamb in your house for a week.
SPEAKER_01: Kids are gonna love it.
SPEAKER_01: They're gonna name it, they're gonna play with it.
SPEAKER_01: And then at the end of the time, the father is gonna take the lamb, and the Bible makes it so clear in the book of Exodus.
SPEAKER_01: The father is supposed to have the family gather around and explain to them what he's doing, and then slit the throat of the lamb and bleed it into a bowl in front of the kids.
SPEAKER_01: Wow.
SPEAKER_01: You think limiting TV causes family problems?
SPEAKER_01: Try bleeding out the family pet in front of the kiddos.
SPEAKER_01: Why do you do this?
SPEAKER_01: And while you do it, the father is supposed to say the words so that you know, unless this lamb dies, you will die.
SPEAKER_01: And you point out the firstborn kid.
SPEAKER_01: You're crying over the lamb?
SPEAKER_01: Well, if it's not the lamb, it's you to the firstborn.
SPEAKER_01: Don't give my firstborn that choice.
SPEAKER_01: She would choose her own, she would let the cat live and herself die, I think.
SPEAKER_01: This is why the father has to make the choice.
SPEAKER_01: He kills the lamb, spreads the blood on the wall, and it's every household.
SPEAKER_01: Well, then they go into the wilderness.
SPEAKER_01: And now you see the Levitical priesthood start.
SPEAKER_01: Now you have a whole tribe of Israel that will be devoted to offering sacrifices for the people.
SPEAKER_01: The priests aren't allowed to have their own territory.
SPEAKER_01: They're supposed to spread out through Israel.
SPEAKER_01: There's 12 tribes, but land will only be allotted to eleven as the Levites spread out through the other tribes.
SPEAKER_01: Remember, not every Levite enters the priesthood.
SPEAKER_01: It was supposed to be the firstborn.
SPEAKER_01: And as time went on, the descendants of one of Levi's kids started to work in the temple, and one of Levi's kids would be singers, and they all had different tasks.
SPEAKER_01: There were cities of Levites.
SPEAKER_01: They developed cities, they were oftentimes the cities of refuge, but those cities were not all priests.
SPEAKER_01: But every Levite, in a sense, could have been a priest.
SPEAKER_01: The priest's job was to spread to the land and offer sacrifices for the people, to be the bridge between God and man.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, when you see the list of twelve tribes, if Levi is listed, then you're going to find Joseph listed.
SPEAKER_01: But a lot of the list of twelve tribes, Levi just drops off.
SPEAKER_01: And it said, you see, Manasseh and Ephraim, I think, are the two that come from Joseph and listed separately, and Levi's not even listed.
SPEAKER_01: Because the tribe of Levi became so ubiquitous, they spread out through all of Israel.
SPEAKER_01: Because that was their function as a priest.
SPEAKER_01: Well, after the exile, the tribes lose their land.
SPEAKER_01: All of them lose their land except Judah and Benjamin.
SPEAKER_01: And then Judah and Benjamin lose their land.
SPEAKER_01: Ezra brings them back.
SPEAKER_01: From this time forward, he's bringing back Levites with them.
SPEAKER_01: But when you look at the intertestamental period, the time between the book of Ezra and the life of Christ, the priests were not acting like they should have been.
SPEAKER_01: They had become political leaders.
SPEAKER_01: It was essentially an elected position.
SPEAKER_01: They were now no longer acting as a bridge between God and man.
SPEAKER_01: By Jesus' lifetime, the priests were acting as a bridge between Rome and Israel.
SPEAKER_01: They wanted the respect of Caesar, they wanted the respect of Herod and of Pilate.
SPEAKER_01: That's whom they banked on.
SPEAKER_01: They were not functioning as legitimate priests.
SPEAKER_01: Although they had the temple, the sacrifices there were done to line, to fleece the pockets of the priests, not to take away the sins of the nation.
SPEAKER_01: This is why Jesus comes in at the beginning of his ministry, John chapter 2, and flips over the tables.
SPEAKER_01: It wasn't just that they were changing money to their own temple currency to make a profit off of it, although that in and of itself was wicked.
SPEAKER_01: It was supposed to be a house of worship.
SPEAKER_01: The priest should have been bringing the news of God to the world.
SPEAKER_01: But instead they were bringing the money of the world to themselves.
SPEAKER_01: And so then Jesus becomes our high priest.
SPEAKER_01: He acts as a priest.
SPEAKER_01: Now you can't have somebody who's a prophet, a priest, and a king.
SPEAKER_01: This is pretty much ingrained in Israelite law.
SPEAKER_01: We have our own separation of government in the U.S.
SPEAKER_01: You can't be a Supreme Court justice and a president and a senator.
SPEAKER_01: It's kind of frowned upon, not allowed.
SPEAKER_01: I think Taft did both once, but not at the same time.
SPEAKER_01: Not at the same time.
SPEAKER_01: The Israelite world functioned the same way.
SPEAKER_01: So how can Jesus be a descendant of David and rightfully king and yet function as a high priest?
SPEAKER_01: Well, that's because he does not function as a priest like Levi, he functions as a priest like Melchizedek.
SPEAKER_01: A priest whose family origin is not significant.
SPEAKER_01: A priest, it doesn't matter who he descended from.
SPEAKER_01: To be a priest in Israel, you had descended from Levi, with the one exception being Melchizedek.
SPEAKER_01: Levi himself came from Abraham's loins, but Abraham had to worship through Melchizedek.
SPEAKER_01: So Jesus comes as a priest like Melchizedek over the tribe of Levi.
SPEAKER_01: Melchizedek's name even means king.
SPEAKER_01: It's got the word king in there.
SPEAKER_01: He's a priestly king.
SPEAKER_01: And so Jesus will be a priestly king as well.
SPEAKER_01: And so when that temple veil is ripped from top to bottom, that obliterates the need for sacrifices.
SPEAKER_01: Sacrifices had to be offered at the temple.
SPEAKER_01: The priest, they selected a high priest to go in, and he but once a year to the middle of the temple.
SPEAKER_01: This is why Ezra needed Levites.
SPEAKER_01: If you have no Levites, you have no person who can go into the temple to offer the sacrifice for the people.
SPEAKER_01: They would die in their sins because Ezra forgot the Levites.
SPEAKER_01: But Jesus comes along and he can go into the Holy of Holies, not into the temple made by human hands, not into the one that was on Mount Zion in Jerusalem under the shadow of the Mount of Olives.
SPEAKER_01: That's not the temple he goes into, although certainly he walked through it on his way to his death.
SPEAKER_01: He goes into a heavenly temple.
SPEAKER_01: The one on earth is just a copy of the real one.
SPEAKER_01: He goes into the throne room of God itself, and that's where he splatters his blood.
SPEAKER_01: That's where he sprinkles his blood.
SPEAKER_01: That's where he makes atonement for sins.
SPEAKER_01: This is the ultimate form of the priesthood.
SPEAKER_01: The priest is put forward by a person or by a family or by a tribe or by a nation to be a bridge between God and man.
SPEAKER_01: But all the human priest could do, all the descendants of Levi could do, was sprinkle blood on an earthly temple.
SPEAKER_01: This only prefigures the forgiveness that comes in Christ because it had to be repeated every single year.
SPEAKER_01: But Jesus does so much more than that.
SPEAKER_01: Certainly he comes from people, he's put forward by people to be our sacrifice.
SPEAKER_01: He is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.
SPEAKER_01: He is a human being, he has a human nature, he is a child of Adam in that sense.
SPEAKER_01: But he can go to a place no human priest has ever gone.
SPEAKER_01: He doesn't just go to the copy of the temple, the shadow of the temple, Paul says it.
SPEAKER_01: He goes right into the presence of God.
SPEAKER_01: And that's where his blood is offered as a sacrifice.
SPEAKER_01: The veil is ripped.
SPEAKER_01: Marvel that it would be another 40 years before the temple itself was destroyed.
SPEAKER_01: Another 40 years where the Pharisees, I'm sure, went through the ritual of offering the Passover lambs every year.
SPEAKER_01: Forty years, all those lambs were killed for no reason whatsoever.
SPEAKER_01: The final sacrifice had already been given.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, it's illegal in Israel to offer a sacrifice at the temple because it'll start a riot.
SPEAKER_01: It doesn't matter anymore.
SPEAKER_01: Understand what changes with Christ.
SPEAKER_01: In Ezra's lifetime, if you have no priest, you have no sacrifice.
SPEAKER_01: If you have no sacrifice, you have no salvation.
SPEAKER_01: That's what's at stake here.
SPEAKER_01: When Ezra is looking for a priest, it's not to nicely round out the twelve tribes.
SPEAKER_01: If he can't find one, he doesn't get to lead his people into heaven.
SPEAKER_01: It's a journey into Israel, but without a Levite, it will not be a journey into heaven because they need a priest.
SPEAKER_01: Now you jump to us.
SPEAKER_01: I said we need a priest.
SPEAKER_01: Well, you get one in a couple ways.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus is, of course, our high priest.
SPEAKER_01: You have to appreciate his humanity to understand this.
SPEAKER_01: There is only one mediator.
SPEAKER_01: This is why Paul says it this way.
SPEAKER_01: There's only one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: He chooses to highlight and underscore his humanity to make that point.
SPEAKER_01: Because he was a man, he can be our substitute.
SPEAKER_01: He can be our high priest.
SPEAKER_01: He can complete the sacrifices.
SPEAKER_01: It will never be offered again.
SPEAKER_01: This is why the doctrine of transubstantiation or the perpetual sacrifice of Christ in the Catholic Church is so critical to them.
SPEAKER_01: Because the Catholic Church will teach that the priesthood remains for today and that you need the human priest to give you your sacraments.
SPEAKER_01: When they do the Mass, transubstantiation, they say the bread ceases to exist and becomes the body of Christ, and it is re-sacrificed every time the Mass is celebrated.
SPEAKER_01: You have to have a perpetual sacrifice if you have that perpetual priesthood.
SPEAKER_01: Because what's a priest if not a butcher?
SPEAKER_01: And this is why the sacrifices are done when Christ goes into the Holy of Holies in heaven.
SPEAKER_01: No more sacrifice is required.
SPEAKER_01: It was the blood shed once for all for the forgiveness of sins.
SPEAKER_01: Never to be offered a second time, ever.
SPEAKER_01: That doesn't mean the sacrifices are entirely over, though.
SPEAKER_01: I want to close by having you turn to Romans chapter 11.
SPEAKER_01: Jump into the New Testament.
SPEAKER_01: Romans chapter 11.
SPEAKER_01: Because you see something really remarkable here at the end of Romans 11.
SPEAKER_01: Romans 11, verse 32, God has consigned all to disobedience so that he may have mercy on all.
SPEAKER_01: And everyone, in other words, everyone who is born into Christ is born into sin and disobedience and yet will receive mercy.
SPEAKER_01: The depth of the riches and the wisdom and the knowledge of God are so unsearchable.
SPEAKER_01: And then jump down to chapter 12, verse 1, I appeal to you, therefore, brothers.
SPEAKER_01: By the mercy of God, present your bodies as a living sacrifice.
SPEAKER_01: A living sacrifice?
SPEAKER_01: Has there ever been a living sacrifice?
SPEAKER_01: Ever.
SPEAKER_01: And what's a sacrifice?
SPEAKER_01: It doesn't get to live.
SPEAKER_01: There's never a sacrifice that walked off the altar.
SPEAKER_01: No, they die.
SPEAKER_01: The priest makes sure of it.
SPEAKER_01: But here with Christ as our high priest, he was the sacrifice.
SPEAKER_01: He was the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.
SPEAKER_01: And he rose from the grave.
SPEAKER_01: So because of his resurrection, you now, if you're in Christ, you have a priest who has been your sacrifice.
SPEAKER_01: And then you are a priest.
SPEAKER_01: Because you present yourself as a sacrifice.
SPEAKER_01: But as a living sacrifice.
SPEAKER_01: This is what's meant by the priesthood of all believers.
SPEAKER_01: That every believer can minister in the church.
SPEAKER_01: Every believer can offer a sacrifice to God.
SPEAKER_01: How can every believer offer a sacrifice to God if Jesus was the last sacrifice?
SPEAKER_01: Because our sacrifices are self.
SPEAKER_01: And we live because Christ lives.
SPEAKER_01: A phrase that would make no sense in the Old Testament.
SPEAKER_01: It would be gibberish in the Old Testament.
SPEAKER_01: A living sacrifice.
SPEAKER_01: What did the priest fall asleep?
SPEAKER_01: But we, because we have a great high priest in the order of Machizeda, can offer to God a living sacrifice.
SPEAKER_01: Hebrews 5, verse 5.
SPEAKER_01: Christ did not exalt himself to be made a high priest.
SPEAKER_01: No, he did not.
SPEAKER_01: But it was appointed to him by God.
SPEAKER_01: Him who said, You are my son, today I have begotten you.
SPEAKER_01: Because Christ is eternal.
SPEAKER_01: And because Christ rose from the grave, we have an eternal high priest.
SPEAKER_01: And we are a resurrected sacrifice.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, we're thankful that through the death of Christ we live.
SPEAKER_01: And through our high priest Jesus Christ, we have a priest.
SPEAKER_01: We have a mediator that bridges the divide between God and man.
SPEAKER_01: And because of that, we are in Christ.
SPEAKER_01: And so we ourselves become priests because we're in him.
SPEAKER_01: We ourselves offer you sacrifices directly.
SPEAKER_01: Not behind a veil, not with the bells and the whistles, not on the prescribed days, but always, always, always, always.
SPEAKER_01: We surrender our lives to you.
SPEAKER_01: We pray that you'd be pleased with the sacrifice we bring.
SPEAKER_01: We give you thanks for this in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for being with us today.
SPEAKER_00: And now a parting word from Pastor Jesse.
SPEAKER_01: If you have any questions about what you heard today, or if you want to learn more about what it means to follow Christ, please visit our church website, emmanuel Bible.church.
SPEAKER_01: If you're not a member of a local church and you live in the Washington, D.C.
SPEAKER_01: area, we'd love to have you worship with us here at Emmanuel.
SPEAKER_01: I hope to personally meet you this Sunday after our service.
SPEAKER_01: But no matter where you live, it's our hope that everyone who uses this resource is involved in their own local church.
SPEAKER_01: Now may God bless you this week as you seek Jesus constantly, serve the Lord faithfully, and share the gospel boldly.