SPEAKER_01: Well, this year my family and I were away from our house for a month.
SPEAKER_01: We uh went to Los Angeles, we went to Israel, we went back to Los Angeles for a while, the kids were away for a month, Dee Jer and I were away from the month, we were gone.
SPEAKER_01: And it was enjoyable to be gone.
SPEAKER_01: This is the month of May we were gone.
SPEAKER_01: It was enjoyable for a while, but then the kids started asking, particularly about the cat.
SPEAKER_01: That's what they cared about.
SPEAKER_01: They wanted to know how the cat was doing.
SPEAKER_01: Butterscotch is our cat, and they wanted to know if Butterscotch was well.
SPEAKER_01: And so I texted, I think it was Keenan who was playing tonight.
SPEAKER_01: I texted Keenan, how's the cat?
SPEAKER_01: And he said, fine.
SPEAKER_01: And but then I got a little suspicious, you know.
SPEAKER_01: What if the cat wasn't really finding?
SPEAKER_01: It's just easier for Keenan to text back, fine.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, I'd want to be lied to at that moment, honestly.
SPEAKER_01: Uh, just let me enjoy the rest of my vacation.
SPEAKER_01: I can deal with the cat debacle later.
SPEAKER_01: Whisk my attitude.
SPEAKER_01: The girls did not share that attitude, so we demanded picture evidence of Butterscotch's health and well-being, which Keenan graciously provided.
SPEAKER_01: And uh, so Butterscotch was alive and well, but then a few days later, they're curious about the cat again, and I'm I'm I'm not texting Keenan again.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, so you're just gonna have to have faith the cat's gonna be okay.
SPEAKER_01: But then I start having questions, not about the cat, I mean, come on.
SPEAKER_01: But I start having questions like what if a tree fell in our yard?
SPEAKER_01: Where there's our yard floods sometimes.
SPEAKER_01: What if our fire pit washed away again?
SPEAKER_01: I mean, uh there's a a meth dealer is next door to us.
SPEAKER_01: What if they have taken have they taken over the block?
SPEAKER_01: Have they annexed part of our property?
SPEAKER_01: It's within the realm of possibility.
SPEAKER_01: So I'm having concerns about what's going on in our neighborhood, too.
SPEAKER_01: A month just seemed like a long time to be away.
SPEAKER_01: When we get back and we turn the corner and drive back down the Red Wing Drive, down the cul-de-sac to our house.
SPEAKER_01: Yes, it's still standing.
SPEAKER_01: There's not smoke coming up, it's still there.
SPEAKER_01: No fire trucks, the meth dealer house still standing, unfortunately, still there.
SPEAKER_01: Cat waiting at the window for us.
SPEAKER_01: It was a glorious scene.
SPEAKER_01: Everything was was well.
SPEAKER_01: We start the Book of Ezra tonight.
SPEAKER_01: The Israelites have been away from their land for 70 years.
SPEAKER_01: Last week, when we were in Psalm 137, we talked about this.
SPEAKER_01: What would that look like to be exiled for that long?
SPEAKER_01: The Jewish people that grew up in Babylon, they, I'm sure, learned to speak Hebrew to varying degrees of success.
SPEAKER_01: It's not the language that would be spoken in business or at work.
SPEAKER_01: Even parents would have the choice.
SPEAKER_01: Do we give our children a Hebrew name or a Persian name, a Babylonian name?
SPEAKER_01: What do we name our kids?
SPEAKER_01: What schools do we send them to?
SPEAKER_01: What food do they eat?
SPEAKER_01: Those are all the basic questions that they would be wrestling with as they are in exile.
SPEAKER_01: As they return back from the land.
SPEAKER_01: It's a lot more profound questions than is the house still standing?
SPEAKER_01: Is the cat still alive?
SPEAKER_01: Those aren't the kind of questions they're asking.
SPEAKER_01: They're asking, what is this place even like?
SPEAKER_01: Remember, they knew the temple was destroyed.
SPEAKER_01: That happened before.
SPEAKER_01: They knew there was just a pile of rubble left there.
SPEAKER_01: But people had indeed been living there.
SPEAKER_01: They had been barred by their Lord from reinhabiting Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_01: The Israelites had.
SPEAKER_01: They'd been taken into exile as punishment for their own sin.
SPEAKER_01: But 70 years later, they get to return.
SPEAKER_01: 70 years later, it's children that are coming back that had never seen it before.
SPEAKER_01: It's grandparents that are coming back that hadn't seen it since they were little children.
SPEAKER_01: The last time we saw Israel was at the end of 2 Kings.
SPEAKER_01: It was May two years ago here.
SPEAKER_01: The finals were just around the corner.
SPEAKER_01: It was a different kind of world than it is now.
SPEAKER_01: The nationals were not the world champions.
SPEAKER_01: President Trump was on his first Secretary of Homeland Security, not his fifth.
SPEAKER_01: It was a long time ago.
SPEAKER_01: It was a different world.
SPEAKER_01: But now that's just been two years.
SPEAKER_01: Now you jump forward today, you see how that's changed in our world.
SPEAKER_01: I want you to just factor in 70 years.
SPEAKER_01: Last time we saw Israel, as I mentioned, it was two years ago at the end of 2 Kings, but for them, it was 598 BC.
SPEAKER_01: And they were kicked out of their land.
SPEAKER_01: And God had indeed been patient with them.
SPEAKER_01: God didn't kick them out willy-nilly, so to speak.
SPEAKER_01: God had warned them and warned them and warned them.
SPEAKER_01: And I want you to zoom out a little bit to get a full sense of the patience God had shown these people.
SPEAKER_01: God created the world in Genesis 1 and 2, good and holy and perfect.
SPEAKER_01: People sinned in Genesis 3, and God showed Adam and Eve patience.
SPEAKER_01: He showed them grace in their sin.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, God responded to the first sin of mankind by killing an animal and covering them.
SPEAKER_01: Adam and Eve became ashamed because of their nakedness, and God covered them.
SPEAKER_01: Of course, that's a representative of how God is going to interact with sinners from this point forward.
SPEAKER_01: When people sin, they can have forgiveness and they can be covered by God through the death of someone else.
SPEAKER_01: Through the death of someone innocent, it can produce a covering.
SPEAKER_01: And so God covers them, covers their sin through atonement, sends them out of the garden, gives them a blessing, and of course, a curse.
SPEAKER_01: They will have to work, that's a blessing, work will be hard, that's the curse.
SPEAKER_01: They'll have family, they will have children, that's the blessing, it'll be difficult, that'll be the curse, and they're sent off into the world.
SPEAKER_01: And of course, they catapult themselves into war and idol worship, rebellion against God, murder right away in the first few chapters of Genesis.
SPEAKER_01: And God again responds with patience.
SPEAKER_01: He sends a prophet to them, Noah, who will preach to them for over a hundred years, 120 years.
SPEAKER_01: Noah cries out to them, and nobody repents.
SPEAKER_01: And so again, God demonstrates his patience by delaying judgment, delaying judgment, then pouring out judgment, but sparing a remnant, and then telling them, repopulate the earth.
SPEAKER_01: Go again.
SPEAKER_01: Round two, go.
SPEAKER_01: And of course, Noah's sins and his drunkenness, his children's sin and their depravity.
SPEAKER_01: And God even covers that sin and scatters them around the world.
SPEAKER_01: The nations bind together with their common language and try to rebel against God's command.
SPEAKER_01: God tells them to scatter and cover the earth.
SPEAKER_01: Instead, they build up, and God again shows them grace.
SPEAKER_01: He doesn't obliterate them, he doesn't flood the earth the second time, he doesn't burn down the tower and destroy them all.
SPEAKER_01: No, he scatters their language, confuses their language, and sends them around the world.
SPEAKER_01: Makes them do what he had commanded them to do the first time.
SPEAKER_01: Chapter 12 of Genesis.
SPEAKER_01: He calls Abraham and says, You're going to have your own nation.
SPEAKER_01: I will make a nation out of you, and they will be my people.
SPEAKER_01: This is God's plan.
SPEAKER_01: And they will develop.
SPEAKER_01: Forget the idol worshippers of the world, the nations that have forgotten me already.
SPEAKER_01: I'm going to create a new people, and they will be my people.
SPEAKER_01: And so Abraham becomes the patriarch.
SPEAKER_01: Israel will come from him.
SPEAKER_01: And if you're familiar with the rest of Genesis, it's the story of Israel's sin, the patriarch's sin.
SPEAKER_01: Each one of them sins in pretty ridiculous ways.
SPEAKER_01: And God shows each of them grace, grace, grace.
SPEAKER_01: They end up in Egypt in slavery.
SPEAKER_01: God shows them grace and brings them out of Egypt.
SPEAKER_01: They rebel in the wilderness.
SPEAKER_01: God destroys them in the wilderness, but leaves a remnant that repopulates, and he leads them into the promised land.
SPEAKER_01: So even by the time Israel steps their first sandalprint into the promised land, the first time they cross the Jordan River and march around Jericho, think of all the grace they have already received by this point.
SPEAKER_01: They should have been destroyed untold number of times.
SPEAKER_01: God could have wiped out the patriarchs at any moment and started over with someone different and a different kind of people, but it's just been one example of patience after another.
SPEAKER_01: And God gives them forgiveness.
SPEAKER_01: They ignore the law.
SPEAKER_01: They lose the law.
SPEAKER_01: They hide the law.
SPEAKER_01: They bury the law.
SPEAKER_01: They rip up the law, one of their kings does.
SPEAKER_01: They do every conceivable thing to get rid of God's law.
SPEAKER_01: And so what does God do?
SPEAKER_01: He sends them prophet after prophet to remind them of the law.
SPEAKER_01: You see that law you just ripped up and threw away, lit on fire and put in the trash?
SPEAKER_01: The prophet shows up and rings the doorbell and says, Hey, I'm here to tell you, take that out of the trash and listen to it.
SPEAKER_01: Time and time again.
SPEAKER_01: And so what did they do with the prophets?
SPEAKER_01: Well, they killed them all, of course.
SPEAKER_01: That's what they did with them.
SPEAKER_01: And God still sent them more.
SPEAKER_01: He even gave them godly kings.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, their very first king.
SPEAKER_01: God should have been their king.
SPEAKER_01: They didn't need a human king, but they wanted one to be like the other nations.
SPEAKER_01: And so God gave them a king that was a wicked king, but not a horrible king by comparison when you see what's coming.
SPEAKER_01: Then he gives them David.
SPEAKER_01: And of course, you know what the Israelites do to David.
SPEAKER_01: They throw him out of Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_01: They rebel against David and exile David.
SPEAKER_01: Give him the long march of shame outside of Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_01: They don't want him as king.
SPEAKER_01: Make Absalom king instead.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, that is how the Israelites operate, and God continually shows them patience.
SPEAKER_01: Civil war breaks out, and God consolidates his prophets and his godly kings into two of the twelve tribes.
SPEAKER_01: But he still sends prophets to the northern tribe, prophet after prophet, and they're murdered up there as well.
SPEAKER_01: Despite all that God showed them, the Israelites rejected God repeatedly.
SPEAKER_01: They rejected God from being king and replaced him with Saul.
SPEAKER_01: They rejected the Levites as priests and replaced him with Baal worshippers.
SPEAKER_01: They rejected the temple of God and replaced it with the Asheroth poles that they could put on any high hill.
SPEAKER_01: They rejected Yahweh, replaced him with idols.
SPEAKER_01: They rejected prayer.
SPEAKER_01: By Jeremiah's day, Jeremiah says, You have rejected prayer for confidence in Egypt.
SPEAKER_01: You'd rather have Egyptian horses on your side than the God who led you out of Egypt.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, it is just irony after irony.
SPEAKER_01: When God sent them prophets, they refused to repent.
SPEAKER_01: They dug in in sin.
SPEAKER_01: They killed the prophets, God sent more.
SPEAKER_01: Eventually, God exiles ten of the twelve tribes.
SPEAKER_01: Eventually.
SPEAKER_01: Leaving two behind.
SPEAKER_01: The ten tribes that are taken to exile, that's like a warning shot to Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_01: The whole time Jerusalem is going into sin, Judah is going into sin.
SPEAKER_01: Do you remember their mantra?
SPEAKER_01: They're saying that God won't punish them because after all, they're the ones who've received the promises.
SPEAKER_01: God wouldn't punish us.
SPEAKER_01: We're Israelites.
SPEAKER_01: We're from the tribe of Judah.
SPEAKER_01: Jerusalem's our capital.
SPEAKER_01: He wouldn't punish us.
SPEAKER_01: We have the temple.
SPEAKER_01: So they loved that God would protect them from the Assyrians and then the Syrians and then the Babylonians and the Egyptians.
SPEAKER_01: They loved that God would protect them from those enemies, but they didn't love God.
SPEAKER_01: They trusted that they were protected, but they hated their protector.
SPEAKER_01: That is Israel in a nutshell.
SPEAKER_01: And so God finally brings this crashing down.
SPEAKER_01: After showing them 400 years of patience, he finally allows them to be exiled.
SPEAKER_01: And by the way, I think we often treat God the same way as the Israelites do.
SPEAKER_01: It's so easy to roll our eyes at them and say, how many prophets did you have to kill before you learn that God was really trying to get your attention?
SPEAKER_01: But we're often the same way.
SPEAKER_01: We think, oh, God wouldn't judge me for my sin.
SPEAKER_01: God wouldn't care about me for my sin because after all, I'm a good person.
SPEAKER_01: You know, I go to church, I've got a Bible, you know.
SPEAKER_01: So God is not that concerned about my sin because he knows that I'm a good person.
SPEAKER_01: So and we use that in our minds as an excuse to keep sinning.
SPEAKER_01: That is Israelite logic.
SPEAKER_01: God wouldn't judge me, I'm an Israelite.
SPEAKER_01: But God finally does judge them and throws them into captivity.
SPEAKER_01: And for 70 years they're gone.
SPEAKER_01: 70 years between the end of 2 Kings and the start of the book of Ezra.
SPEAKER_01: So tonight I want to go through Ezra 1, Ezra 1, and show you what it's like when they return to the Promised Land.
SPEAKER_01: When they return back to Israel.
SPEAKER_01: First, that God plans the future.
SPEAKER_01: The first lesson from the end of the exile here is that God plans the future.
SPEAKER_01: And you see this beginning in Ezra 1, verse 1.
SPEAKER_01: In the first year of Cyrus, king of Persia.
SPEAKER_01: And this first year would be 538 is when this happens.
SPEAKER_01: Cyrus becomes king of Persia.
SPEAKER_01: Cyrus becomes king.
SPEAKER_01: He wants to show grace and benevolence to the Israelites.
SPEAKER_01: Cyrus is a very interesting person.
SPEAKER_01: We talked about him before in our study of the book of Daniel.
SPEAKER_01: He was an Iranian ruler.
SPEAKER_01: His father was, remember that this his empire is called the Medean Persian Empire.
SPEAKER_01: His father was Persian, his mother was Mede.
SPEAKER_01: In our to use our modern analogy, both would be Iranian, they would speak farsi today, but back then it wasn't really an ethnic distinction as much as it was a language distinction.
SPEAKER_01: The difference between the Medes and the Persians was more of a linguistic one.
SPEAKER_01: And Cyrus had his dad on one side, his mother on the other, and that since he united the tribes when the Medes finally rebelled against the Persians, he consolidated authority and he became the sole emperor of the Med and Persian Empire.
SPEAKER_01: And he was a brilliant person.
SPEAKER_01: He first, when he became emperor, he didn't go against Babylon, which was the big empire on the block, so to speak.
SPEAKER_01: He went east out to India, which the Medes and Persians already had somewhat control over.
SPEAKER_01: He reestablished control out there, and people, his subjects actually loved him.
SPEAKER_01: Even the far-flung places of his empire, like India, they respected him because he had kind of a toleration approach to them.
SPEAKER_01: He let them worship their own gods, have their own even currency.
SPEAKER_01: He heads back and attacks Babylon.
SPEAKER_01: We studied this in the book of Daniel.
SPEAKER_01: He conquers Babylon in an unexpected way.
SPEAKER_01: They put siege in the Babylonians.
SPEAKER_01: The Babylonians were arrogant and thought they could not be conquered.
SPEAKER_01: Cyrus conquered them by diverting the Euphrates River, which fed into Babylon.
SPEAKER_01: They didn't think that could be done.
SPEAKER_01: It happened.
SPEAKER_01: All of his soldiers stream into Babylon in the middle of the night and conquer the Babylonian Empire.
SPEAKER_01: That was October 12th, 539 BC.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's a well-attested event in world history.
SPEAKER_01: It was two weeks later when Ezra 1-1 takes place, October 29th.
SPEAKER_01: We know the date because the script of this, you can see a model of it in the Bible Museum.
SPEAKER_01: The original is in the British Museum in London, but there's a replica of it in the Bible museum.
SPEAKER_01: It's pretty cool to look at.
SPEAKER_01: But this is the word that happens.
SPEAKER_01: It's recorded on a little script that's around a I don't know what the word is, like a scroll kind of thing.
SPEAKER_01: The word of Yahweh by the mouth of Jeremiah might be fulfilled.
SPEAKER_01: Yahweh stirred up the spirit of Cyrus, the king of Persia, so that he made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom, and he put it in writing.
SPEAKER_01: Thus says Cyrus, king of Persia, Yahweh, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth, and he's charged me to build him a house in Jerusalem, which is in Judah.
SPEAKER_01: Now understand, this is a remarkable prophecy because this declaration by the emperor ends the exile.
SPEAKER_01: They were brought against their will 70 years earlier out of Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_01: They were brought screaming and kicking.
SPEAKER_01: Their king was brought out literally with a hook in his nose and led on a leash out of Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_01: That's how Judah fell.
SPEAKER_01: You fast forward 70 years, and now their new emperor gives a proclamation that you can all go home.
SPEAKER_01: The exile is over, you can return.
SPEAKER_01: This shows you that God has been in control.
SPEAKER_01: It happens to the dates that God said, 70 years.
SPEAKER_01: But first you just need to marvel at why Ezra begins his book with the first year of Cyrus.
SPEAKER_01: He's named, and that's because Isaiah 44, verse 28, written 200 years earlier, names Cyrus.
SPEAKER_01: Isaiah 44, 28.
SPEAKER_01: Who says of Cyrus?
SPEAKER_01: Yahweh, speaking of Cyrus, he is my shepherd, he will fulfill all my purpose.
SPEAKER_01: He says, Of Jerusalem, she shall be built, and of the temple your foundation should be laid.
SPEAKER_01: So Yahweh declares Cyrus will be emperor, and he will give this declaration 200 years earlier.
SPEAKER_01: Before the Medo-Persian Empire was a thing.
SPEAKER_01: God says, You will have a ruler named Cyrus who will declare this.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I can't even think of an American equivalent to that.
SPEAKER_01: Jonathan Edwards in the 1700s, saying one day you will have a president named Barack Obama.
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
SPEAKER_01: That would be, you're starting to get to the kind of thing, like an unusual name called out by Jonathan Edwards 200 years earlier.
SPEAKER_01: You're starting to get to what Isaiah prophesies about Cyrus 200 years earlier.
SPEAKER_01: It's a remarkable prophecy.
SPEAKER_01: And it comes to pass here.
SPEAKER_01: That's Isaiah 44, 28.
SPEAKER_01: But you'll notice, Ezra 1, verse 1 says, according so that the word of Yahweh by the mouth of Jeremiah might be fulfilled.
SPEAKER_01: Why doesn't he say Isaiah?
SPEAKER_01: Because the Jeremiah one is a, you would think in your mind, that's a secondary in like an awesomeness.
SPEAKER_01: Naming the dude 200 years before he was born is tough to beat.
SPEAKER_01: But if you're a Jew, what is more immediate to you is not just that God names the person, but that God is going to rescue you.
SPEAKER_01: That's what's important to you.
SPEAKER_01: Regardless, the point is that God plans the future.
SPEAKER_01: He knew how long Israel would be in exile.
SPEAKER_01: He knew the person who would end it.
SPEAKER_01: He has been in control of this the whole time.
SPEAKER_01: Do you think the Israelites thought God was in control when they watched their king get let out of the capital with a hook in his nose?
SPEAKER_01: Do you think they thought God was in control when they watched the temple burn to the ground?
SPEAKER_01: When they watched all the vessels get looted from the temple?
SPEAKER_01: Do you think they thought God was in control when they prayed to God for rescue from them and God didn't seem to answer and they lost?
SPEAKER_01: But now in the mirror they see that God was in fact sovereign the whole time because he had already told them what would happen.
SPEAKER_01: So the first lesson God plans the future.
SPEAKER_01: So by the way, when you're going through a trial, have the same confidence in your life.
SPEAKER_01: Have the same confidence that no matter what you're going through, it's not unseen to the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: The Lord knows.
SPEAKER_01: Nothing you're going through is unseen by him.
SPEAKER_01: He knew it before you were born.
SPEAKER_01: He plans the future.
SPEAKER_01: The second lesson from the exile.
SPEAKER_01: That God protects his people.
SPEAKER_01: Now I mentioned that to the Jew.
SPEAKER_01: The Jeremiah prophecy is even more amazing than the Isaiah prophecy.
SPEAKER_01: The Jeremiah prophecy is from Jeremiah.
SPEAKER_01: There's two of them.
SPEAKER_01: Jeremiah 25, verses 11 and 12.
SPEAKER_01: And I'm going to flip there.
SPEAKER_01: If you want to make your way there, you can also.
SPEAKER_01: Jeremiah is after Isaiah, before Ezekiel.
SPEAKER_01: Just write a few books, jump past Psalms, jump past Isaiah.
SPEAKER_01: Jeremiah 25, verse 11.
SPEAKER_01: This whole land will become a ruin and a waste, God says.
SPEAKER_01: Speaking of Judah.
SPEAKER_01: These nations shall serve the king of Babylon for 70 years.
SPEAKER_01: Early up in Jeremiah 25, verse 9, he said, I'm going to let ye follow the Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, who is my servant.
SPEAKER_01: I will bring them against this land.
SPEAKER_01: So God is telling the Israelites, you will be destroyed.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, look at the end of verse 9.
SPEAKER_01: You'll be devoted to destruction, you will be a horror, there will be a hissing and an everlasting desolation.
SPEAKER_01: So God says, you're going to go down.
SPEAKER_01: But verse 11 is the prophecy.
SPEAKER_01: You will serve the king of Babylon for 70 years, and verse 12.
SPEAKER_01: After 70 years are completed, I will punish the king of Babylon and that nation, the land of the Chaldeans, for their iniquity, declares Yahweh, making their land an everlasting waste.
SPEAKER_01: And of course, that is what happened.
SPEAKER_01: Remember the Babylonian king was defeated by Cyrus in a humiliating fashion?
SPEAKER_01: As punishment.
SPEAKER_01: That was prophesied by Daniel.
SPEAKER_01: Daniel warned him.
SPEAKER_01: God had handwriting on the wall that it was going to happen.
SPEAKER_01: They ignored God just like the Israelites did, and God destroyed them.
SPEAKER_01: But notice the key phrase in here if you're an Israelite.
SPEAKER_01: For 70 years you'll be in Babylon.
SPEAKER_01: Seventy years.
SPEAKER_01: There's an end date to the prophecy.
SPEAKER_01: Flip over to Jeremiah 29, verse 10.
SPEAKER_01: You see something similar there.
SPEAKER_01: Jeremiah chapter 29, verse 10.
SPEAKER_01: Thus says Yahweh, when 70 years are completed for Babylon, I will visit you and I will fulfill to you my promise to bring you back to this place.
SPEAKER_01: That promise that he said earlier in Jeremiah.
SPEAKER_01: It will be 70 years.
SPEAKER_01: So God repeats it a second time in the book of Jeremiah.
SPEAKER_01: I know the plans I have for you, is Jeremiah 29, 11, declares Yahweh.
SPEAKER_01: Plans for welfare and not for evil.
SPEAKER_01: Plans to give you hope in a future.
SPEAKER_01: This is one of the first Bible verses I memorized when I got saved.
SPEAKER_01: I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: Plans to prosper you and not to harm you, to give you hope in the future.
SPEAKER_01: You probably memorize that verse too.
SPEAKER_01: It's on bumper stickers, it's on FCA t-shirts, it's everywhere.
SPEAKER_01: Tim Tebow probably writes it on his face if it would fit.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's that kind of verse.
SPEAKER_01: But when you get the context of this, do you understand the greatness of this verse?
SPEAKER_01: That they are experienced horrific judgment from God.
SPEAKER_01: The worst case scenario has happened to them.
SPEAKER_01: And God says it will only last 70 years.
SPEAKER_01: That's why I chuckle when I see that verse on you know athletes' faces or on the back of cars, because that verse says that you're going to go through intense suffering for 70 years.
SPEAKER_01: It's not quite the pregame speech you're looking for as a coach, right?
SPEAKER_01: We're gonna lose this game and every game for 70 years.
SPEAKER_01: But when you're you know 70 plus years old, then you'll win one, because that's what God says in Jeremiah 29.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, it seems almost mocking, but if you're an Israelite, it's not mocking.
SPEAKER_01: If you're an Israelite, you can turn that hourglass over or that 70 year glass over on Your table, start the countdown.
SPEAKER_01: That's a long advent.
SPEAKER_01: You know, kids can't wait 25 days of December eating chocolate every day to get to Christmas.
SPEAKER_01: Imagine a 70-year countdown.
SPEAKER_01: 70 years.
SPEAKER_01: That's the greatness of this prophecy.
SPEAKER_01: That's why, if you go back to Ezra chapter 1, that's what Ezra focuses on.
SPEAKER_01: Not that God named the person who would end the prophecy, although that is cool.
SPEAKER_01: Ezra focuses on the basic fact that God has kept his word.
SPEAKER_01: Seventy years later, he's remembering Israel.
SPEAKER_01: Seventy years later, he's going to call them back out of exile.
SPEAKER_01: If you're an Israelite wandering in a foreign land, this is the kind of promise you can hang your hat on.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 2, you're going to go back, he says, I will build, you'll build a house in Jerusalem, which is the temple.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 3, whoever's among you all of his people, may his God be with him, and let him go to Jerusalem, which is in Judah, and rebuild the house of Yahweh, the God of Israel.
SPEAKER_01: He is the God who is in Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_01: This is Cyrus' declaration.
SPEAKER_01: Now, Cyrus here gives his declaration to lots of other people that were captive by the Babylonians.
SPEAKER_01: But this one, he even uses the covenant name of God.
SPEAKER_01: It is Yahweh who will let you go home.
SPEAKER_01: Cyrus had a relationship with Daniel.
SPEAKER_01: Daniel was encouraging Cyrus to do this, but Cyrus did this after he'd been in charge of Babylon for two weeks.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, that's impressive.
SPEAKER_01: Two weeks of being around Daniel and he's issuing this kind of edict, naming Yahweh.
SPEAKER_01: How encouraging would this be for the Israelites?
SPEAKER_01: Notice that even in the way it's worded in verse 3, it's not about the temple like verse 2 is.
SPEAKER_01: It's personal in verse 3.
SPEAKER_01: Whoever is among you, this is to the people.
SPEAKER_01: The people that feel discouraged, the people that feel abandoned by God, the people that feel like God has forgotten them.
SPEAKER_01: Ezra has a word for you.
SPEAKER_01: God has not forgotten you.
SPEAKER_01: God knows you, God remembers you.
SPEAKER_01: If you're going through suffering, know that God knows how long it will last.
SPEAKER_01: Romans tells us that God uses every difficulty, every trial for our good and for his glory.
SPEAKER_01: And if you're, if God's glory is your greatest good, you see how that's redundant.
SPEAKER_01: This is that kind of promise in Ezra 1, verse 3.
SPEAKER_01: You may be suffering, but God protects his people.
SPEAKER_01: And so our kind of enemies would be different, of course.
SPEAKER_01: We prayed for the persecuted church tonight, so it's very easy to see how this applies to some Christians in the world that although they're being persecuted, although they're suffering under the thumb of their government, they should have confidence that God has an end date for their suffering in mind.
SPEAKER_01: That God is using all their suffering for good and for his glory, and that God will bring good out of every piece of suffering a Christian goes through.
SPEAKER_01: In our own culture, it's probably more personal than corporate.
SPEAKER_01: It's not that the church is going through suffering, but you and your life might be going through suffering through trials, health trials, family trials, those kind of things.
SPEAKER_01: And we have the confidence that God protects his people.
SPEAKER_01: No temptation will overcome you except that which is common to all people.
SPEAKER_01: And with every temptation, God gives a way to escape, a way of escape.
SPEAKER_01: It's that kind of promise.
SPEAKER_01: God knows what is in front of you, and he protects you while you're going through your trials.
SPEAKER_01: And thirdly, God provokes people's hearts.
SPEAKER_01: God provokes people's hearts.
SPEAKER_01: Let each survivor, in whatever place he sojourns, I just, by the way, I want to pause here.
SPEAKER_01: It's so interesting that Ezra refers to these people in captivity as survivors.
SPEAKER_01: He even refers to those that have survived this long as survivors.
SPEAKER_01: Whatever place he sojourns, wherever these exiles are, he should 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.
SPEAKER_01: That's a very curious phrase.
SPEAKER_01: You should be assisted by the men of your place.
SPEAKER_01: Cyrus is counting on what actually happens in Jewish history here, that if the Jews were living in, you know, little neighborhoods with each other, say there's a hundred Jews in one neighborhood, there's ten families in one neighborhood in exile.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe only one family will go back, leaving nine families behind.
SPEAKER_01: Cyrus is not commanding that all the families go back.
SPEAKER_01: A lot of the families are assimilated.
SPEAKER_01: They don't want to go back.
SPEAKER_01: We're going to meet Esther in a few months and we'll encounter her.
SPEAKER_01: She's from one of those families.
SPEAKER_01: They could have gone back under this decree, but they didn't.
SPEAKER_01: They were happy in Babylon.
SPEAKER_01: They were happy in the Persian Empire.
SPEAKER_01: But Cyrus is saying, you got ten families?
SPEAKER_01: One of them goes back if they want to.
SPEAKER_01: And the other nine, give them money.
SPEAKER_01: The other nine, give them, those nine families, give that one family gold.
SPEAKER_01: So you got ten families, and you're the one that's going to go back to Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_01: The other nine Jewish families living around you, they should give you money.
SPEAKER_01: They should give you gold.
SPEAKER_01: Now, why would anybody do that?
SPEAKER_01: Well, because the Lord is working in their hearts.
SPEAKER_01: The Lord is working in their hearts.
SPEAKER_01: And you see that in verse 5.
SPEAKER_01: Then rose up the heads of the father houses, fathers' houses of Judah and Benjamin and the priests and the Levites, everyone whose spirit God had stirred up to go up to rebuild the house of Yahweh that is in Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_01: So you see here how God is doing this.
SPEAKER_01: God is going to send Jews back to Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_01: He is hand selecting which Jews.
SPEAKER_01: And how do they get selected?
SPEAKER_01: God stirs up their spirit.
SPEAKER_01: In other words, those that want to go back and go back.
SPEAKER_01: And believe me, this is the easiest one to relate to modern Christian living, right here.
SPEAKER_01: This is the same way God's sovereignty is expressed in your life today.
SPEAKER_01: God's sovereignty is seen in your life through your desires.
SPEAKER_01: That's how God works.
SPEAKER_01: How do you know if God wants you to be a missionary?
SPEAKER_01: Do you want to be a missionary?
SPEAKER_01: It's not, it's really not much more complex than that.
SPEAKER_01: You know, you can take a spiritual gift test as you want, but I mean I like spiritual gift tests sometimes for people that are indecisive.
SPEAKER_01: They have a hard time making choices.
SPEAKER_01: That can help them make choices.
SPEAKER_01: But the bottom line with a spiritual gift test is it's asking you, what do you want to do?
SPEAKER_01: Do you like driving a shuttle?
SPEAKER_01: I think I know what your spiritual gift might be.
SPEAKER_01: You should drive the shuttle.
SPEAKER_01: Do you like directing cars in the parking lot?
SPEAKER_01: I have another idea for how you can serve.
SPEAKER_01: Do you like holding babies?
SPEAKER_01: I have a great way for you to serve at Emmanuel.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, that's just what it comes down to.
SPEAKER_01: So much of the Christian life boils down to that.
SPEAKER_01: Do you want to go into ministry?
SPEAKER_01: Then the Lord is probably calling you into ministry.
SPEAKER_01: You remember when we looked at the elder qualifications in 1 Timothy 3?
SPEAKER_01: The first one is do you aspire to be an elder?
SPEAKER_01: If yes, great, you can go on to the next ones.
SPEAKER_01: If no, okay, you can skip that part.
SPEAKER_01: It's okay.
SPEAKER_01: Not every Christian is supposed to be an elder.
SPEAKER_01: Not every Christian is supposed to work in the parking lot or be a missionary or work in the nursery unless you're a member of Emmanuel.
SPEAKER_01: Then you have to do it four times a year.
SPEAKER_01: And don't forget it either.
SPEAKER_01: We'll find you.
SPEAKER_01: That's the exception clause.
SPEAKER_01: But for everything else in the Christian life, it's about your desires.
SPEAKER_01: And the Lord will not leave a need unmet in his kingdom.
SPEAKER_01: He won't.
SPEAKER_01: You know, you think, oh, if this doesn't happen, then God's kingdom will be thwarted.
SPEAKER_01: There just needs to be somebody that needs to go do this because I just feel so confident that that should be done.
SPEAKER_01: Well, if you want to do it, great.
SPEAKER_01: And if not, don't worry about it.
SPEAKER_01: God is not going to leave any job openings in his kingdom.
SPEAKER_01: He fills everyone and he fills them, not with people who are reluctant, but he fills them by working in their hearts.
SPEAKER_01: Now, how did God make sure that the enough people went back to repopulate Jerusalem?
SPEAKER_01: By working in their hearts.
SPEAKER_01: That's the neat thing about the sovereign God.
SPEAKER_01: Again, other religions can't say this because their God does not operate with the sense of sovereignty over individual human hearts.
SPEAKER_01: But our God does.
SPEAKER_01: And so we can say, listen, you know how you know the Lord's will for your life?
SPEAKER_01: Do what the Bible says.
SPEAKER_01: And then after that, do what you want to do.
SPEAKER_01: Generally speaking, God doesn't make people do things opposite of their desires.
SPEAKER_01: You even see this in salvation.
SPEAKER_01: How does God save someone?
SPEAKER_01: Does he save someone against their will?
SPEAKER_01: No.
SPEAKER_01: He saves someone by changing their will.
SPEAKER_01: They go from loving sin to loving Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: And how does that happen?
SPEAKER_01: The Holy Spirit changes their will.
SPEAKER_01: You might go into the kingdom screaming and kicking.
SPEAKER_01: God might be manipulating your circumstances to get you into church or to get the Bible in front of you or to get Christians to knock on your door.
SPEAKER_01: God might be doing those kind of things externally to you, causing you to go through trials so that your eyes are open to the truth.
SPEAKER_01: He might be doing those things, but the moment of conversion, it is no longer against your will.
SPEAKER_01: You are converted by God changing your will.
SPEAKER_01: And this is such a great example of this here.
SPEAKER_01: You saw it up in verse 1, by the way.
SPEAKER_01: God can do this in non-believers' lives too.
SPEAKER_01: Look at verse 1.
SPEAKER_01: That Yahweh stirred up the spirit of Cyrus.
SPEAKER_01: The same way God got Cyrus to issue the decree at the right date on the calendar, he gets the Israelites to go back to the promised land.
SPEAKER_01: Now, this doesn't mean that means are not important.
SPEAKER_01: God obviously uses means.
SPEAKER_01: What means did God use in Cyrus' life to get him to issue this decree?
SPEAKER_01: Well, Daniel 6, verses 25 through 28.
SPEAKER_01: Daniel was the means.
SPEAKER_01: God put Daniel in Cyrus' life to get him to issue this decree.
SPEAKER_01: That's described in the book of Daniel.
SPEAKER_01: Ezra is not concerned with that.
SPEAKER_01: Ezra just says, look, God did it in Cyrus' heart.
SPEAKER_01: We can figure out how later.
SPEAKER_01: This is the way God moved in the heart of the Jews in verse 5.
SPEAKER_01: The right people were stirred up in their hearts to go back.
SPEAKER_01: This is the way God still works today.
SPEAKER_01: The fourth lesson from the end of the exile.
SPEAKER_01: Fourth lesson.
SPEAKER_01: God provides worshippers' needs.
SPEAKER_01: God provides their needs.
SPEAKER_01: He plans the future.
SPEAKER_01: He protects his people.
SPEAKER_01: He provokes his people's hearts to do his will.
SPEAKER_01: And then finally, he provides his worshippers' needs.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 6.
SPEAKER_01: All who were about them.
SPEAKER_01: In other words, all the families, not even not just the ones that went back to Jerusalem, but the other Jewish families that were in exile, all of them, they aided those that went back with the vessels of silver, with gold, with goods, with beasts, with costly wares, besides all that was freely offered.
SPEAKER_01: And there's going to be a lot of animals.
SPEAKER_01: When we get to Ezra 6, you're going to just see they sacrifice a ridiculous number of animals when they get back.
SPEAKER_01: These were all donated by the Jews that didn't go.
SPEAKER_01: Cyrus the king also brought out the vessels of the house of Yahweh that Nebuchadnezzar had carried away from Jerusalem and placed in the house of his gods.
SPEAKER_01: Cyrus the king of Persia brought these out in charge of the Midriath and the treasurer, who counted out to Sheshbazar and the prince of Judah.
SPEAKER_01: He was likely the leader of the Jews in exile.
SPEAKER_01: I don't think it was an official government position, at least that's what commentaries say.
SPEAKER_01: It was more likely an unofficial position.
SPEAKER_01: It's different than Zerubbabel, who goes back with Ezra, the names aren't quite the same.
SPEAKER_01: Now these are all the vessels.
SPEAKER_01: You think what's the deal with the vessels here?
SPEAKER_01: You need a little history in the vessels to get how impressive this is.
SPEAKER_01: These vessels came from Solomon.
SPEAKER_01: 1 Kings chapter 7, Solomon brought bronze vessels into the temple.
SPEAKER_01: Bronze vessels purchased from Lebanon, along with all the timber he used to make the temple.
SPEAKER_01: Then in 1 Kings 10, when they started their trade, and silver was this, if you saw silver on the ground, you wouldn't pick it up because it was only silver.
SPEAKER_01: That's how wealthy Israel was back then.
SPEAKER_01: 1 Kings 10, Solomon ditches the bronze vessels and upgrades the gold vessels.
SPEAKER_01: Upgrades the gold vessels.
SPEAKER_01: You know, if you've bought an engagement ring, this is how I got sold.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, you should just buy this ring.
SPEAKER_01: It's, you know, you're a poor starving seminary student.
SPEAKER_01: Buy just this small ring, and on your 10-year anniversary, you can upgrade it.
SPEAKER_01: The upgrade ring.
SPEAKER_01: Have you heard that speech before?
SPEAKER_01: Just poor starving seminary students.
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
SPEAKER_01: So that's that's why I fell for the, you know, just buy this little ring.
SPEAKER_01: And when you finally make your millions, then you can get the upgraded ring.
SPEAKER_01: That's what Solomon did with the wares of the temple.
SPEAKER_01: Solomon brought the bronze dishes, and you need dishes in the temple because of all the sacrifices, the smoke gobs up, the snuffers to put out the fire, and uh to bring the fat around and the ashes around and to sprinkle the blood.
SPEAKER_01: There's a significant amount of hardware that goes into this.
SPEAKER_01: Solomon upgraded from the bronze ones to the gold ones in chapter 10 of 1 Kings.
SPEAKER_01: And then you don't see them again.
SPEAKER_01: They're just operating in the temple until 2 Kings 25.
SPEAKER_01: I was going to have you turn there, but you can just jot it down and read it on your own, 2 Kings 25.
SPEAKER_01: Those things get taken captive, and they get taken captive in a brutal way.
SPEAKER_01: The Babylonians storm the temple, take all the treasure out, and they take the priests that are in charge of guarding the treasure.
SPEAKER_01: So these priests, I don't think, were particularly godly, but they were willing to die rather than let the temple's treasure get ransacked by the Babylonians.
SPEAKER_01: And so the Babylonians take those priests, guarding the vessels of the temple, all the way to Babylon.
SPEAKER_01: They go to Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar lines them up, takes the utensils, the vessels, into his own worship, and then slaughters the priest there.
SPEAKER_01: So the priests were kept alive and paraded across the world just so that they could see those vessels defiled by a pagan king, and then they were slaughtered.
SPEAKER_01: That's 2 Kings 25.
SPEAKER_01: And those vessels go missing in action in the Babylonian Empire until Daniel chapter 5.
SPEAKER_01: And you remember there, the Babylonian king was getting drunk, and he was angry at Daniel.
SPEAKER_01: And so he brought those vessels out of storage to drink from them.
SPEAKER_01: And it was a totally debauched scene.
SPEAKER_01: And they're getting drunk with the vessels from the temple.
SPEAKER_01: And that's when the hand of God appears and writes on the wall that your days are numbered, king.
SPEAKER_01: You're going down.
SPEAKER_01: And it's that night he loses the empire.
SPEAKER_01: Two and a half weeks later, Cyrus gets those vessels together and sends them back to the temple.
SPEAKER_01: It's a remarkable story of providence.
SPEAKER_01: A remarkable story that God protected these things for hundreds of years through a myriad of kings in different nations.
SPEAKER_01: And he brings them back to the temple.
SPEAKER_01: They need those things in the temple to do the temple worship.
SPEAKER_01: He brought back Levites, verse 5 says to the temple.
SPEAKER_01: They need the priests.
SPEAKER_01: He brought back people from Judah and from Benjamin to the temple, verse 5 says.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, the instruments are enumerated in verse 9.
SPEAKER_01: This was the number of them: 30 basins of gold, a thousand bases of silver, 29 censors, 30 bowls of gold, 410 bowls of silver, a thousand other vessels.
SPEAKER_01: All the vessels of gold and silver were 5,400.
SPEAKER_01: You number that all up, there's 5,400 of these things.
SPEAKER_01: All these Shesbazar did bring up with him when the exiles were brought up from Babylonia to Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_01: Do you see in the end of exile here how God has meticulously provided for everything his people need?
SPEAKER_01: He counted the days they would be in exile and ended it right on time.
SPEAKER_01: He protected his people through exile.
SPEAKER_01: They're even called survivors here, and he brings them back.
SPEAKER_01: He brings them back by working in their hearts.
SPEAKER_01: And he provides everything they need to worship.
SPEAKER_01: There is one thing they're missing, though.
SPEAKER_01: The question that any Israelite would have at this point is who is going to be their king?
SPEAKER_01: Is Cyrus going to be their king?
SPEAKER_01: This is the question they ran into at the beginning of 1 Samuel.
SPEAKER_01: It's a question from the book of Judges.
SPEAKER_01: Who is going to be their king?
SPEAKER_01: They're back in their land.
SPEAKER_01: Do they get their own king?
SPEAKER_01: Maybe it will be Cyrus.
SPEAKER_01: We'll look more at that next week.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, we're grateful that you are sovereign over our lives.
SPEAKER_01: We know that you declare the days that we will live, you give us breath, and you provide everything we need through our Savior Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: You have protected us from the power of sin by freeing us through the gospel.
SPEAKER_01: You have provided us everything we need to worship you, a purified conscience, Hebrews chapter 9 says, that you have cleansed our conscience from the things that defile.
SPEAKER_01: Most of all, you've given us a priest, a high priest, Jesus Christ, who is enthroned in heaven right now, seated at the right hand of the Father, making intercession for us.
SPEAKER_01: He is our priest.
SPEAKER_01: We don't need the vessels of the temple.
SPEAKER_01: Instead, you have given us the church, and you have provided everything we need through the church.
SPEAKER_01: You provided us elders and pastors who who lead and teach.
SPEAKER_01: You provided deacons and others who faithfully serve and meet the needs of the saints.
SPEAKER_01: You provided faithful people who pray and serve men and women who build up your church.
SPEAKER_01: You have provided everything we need, missionaries that go into the corners of the world.
SPEAKER_01: Christians who are persecuted to fill up what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ.
SPEAKER_01: News of their persecution that echoes down to us.
SPEAKER_01: A response to that, that all strengthens the church.
SPEAKER_01: You again have provided everything we have needed through the gospel and then built us into the church.
SPEAKER_01: We're grateful for what Jesus did for us two thousand years ago on the cross through his death and resurrection.
SPEAKER_01: We're grateful for what he's doing for us right now, seated in heaven, interceding on our behalf.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, you are the constant provider, and we give you thanks for that 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, emmanuelbible.church.
SPEAKER_01: If you're not a member of the 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.