The book of Ezra

… ... before the time of Ezra. The book is called Ezra, but the first six chapters only deal with Zerubbabel and Ezra only comes into the picture in the seventh chapter. But in this book, beloved brothers and sisters, we have another presentation of a revival in the Old Testament, from which we, as from the other three we have heard about this afternoon, we can learn many practical things for our days. During the conference it was said, and it was a point of discussion later on, that there would be no revival, that there is no revival to be expected in our days, because there is decline, there is ruin. Everything God started in perfection, whether it was creation, whether it was Noah after the flood, whether it was Israel at the beginning, a redeemed people, and how soon they left the precepts of God. And it is the same with Christianity. How wonderful the picture in Acts 2 of this assembly of God, one inwardly and outwardly by the Holy Spirit, and how does it present itself today. And therefore, when it was said there is no revival to be expected because Scripture does not speak about it, it was the thought that there would be no outward movement in a great measure, as if to say that millions and millions and millions of people would come to the Lord by a wonderful, miraculous operation of the Holy Spirit. This is what is said sometimes, and written sometimes, even to our days. I do not think that this has to be expected. But we have revival, we have it in the Old Testament, and we have it here, and we can have it today. We spoke about the revival which took place even to an outward extent, rather not too small, about 200 years ago. All over Europe, one could say, all over the world. But what it really was, was not that millions were converted. It was that a small percentage of Christians went back to the roots, went back to the origins. And I think this kind of revival can be a personal revival, and it is not an outward thing, it is more or less an inward thing. It is something which starts in the souls and hearts and consciences of every single believer. And this kind of revival, beloved ones, can take place every day in our own life. And I think this is what we can learn from the book of Ezra and Nehemiah, and from these revivals we have in the Old Testament, which we have had before us in the first meeting. And I would like to point, not to give an exposition of these almost three chapters from which I read, but only to point at certain important and very touching things which have a voice for us today. When the time had come of Cyrus the King of Persia, it was about the year 538, 537 or 536, nobody knows exactly at that time, at a year, but it was at that time that the Persian Empire, the second great of the four empires which were predicted in Daniel, the first was the Babylonian, the second the Persian, the third the Greek, and the fourth the Roman Empire. But the fifth, the last, will be the empire, the kingdom of God in this world for the millennium. Persia was the second empire of Daniel. And it is a wonderful thing that the first thing which is taught us here in this chapter, chapter 1 and verse 1, that God stirred the heart of this emperor Cyrus, this king Cyrus, a mighty conqueror, a mighty conqueror who conquered all the whole Near East from this little, at that time, little country, Persia. Therefore Darius the Median is always called together. They were brother people or sister people, these two, Persians and Medians. And Darius was his co-emperor or co-king. But it says here that this person, this king of Persia, who played a big role, every pupil learned at school about Cyrus, was stirred by God. God can direct the hearts of kings like drops of water. And to what end did God do this? To fulfill his word. That is the first thing we read here. The word of Jehovah by the mouth, in the first year of Cyrus, king of Persia, that the word of Jehovah by the mouth of Jeremiah might be accomplished. Jehovah stirred up the spirit of Cyrus, king of Persia. That the word of Jehovah might be fulfilled. That is the reason why Cyrus is mentioned here. Isaiah mentions him more than 150 years before he was ever born. Isaiah 42, you can read, 44 I think it is. There the name Cyrus is mentioned. Temporary, time-wise, for the first time. Isaiah 44, verse 28. It is said of Jehovah the Lord, He that saith of Cyrus, he is my shepherd, and he shall perform all my pleasure. Chapter 45, thus saith Jehovah to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have owed him, to subdue nations before him. Why did Cyrus subdue the nations? Why was he such a mighty king? He thought he was powerful in himself. He did not think of God. In chapter 45 it is said twice, thou knewest me not. He was not a believer. Although he knew the name of Jehovah, which he mentions here, he thought that he acted independently of anybody, that he was the ruler of the world. But the word of God says that the word of Jehovah by the mouth of Jeremiah might be fulfilled. Just one word as to Isaiah. The twice-mentioning of the name of Cyrus has led the theologians of our time to doubt that the whole second part, the entire second part of Isaiah has been written by the man called Isaiah. Because for modern theology it is unthinkable and impossible that there is real prophecy. For modern theology there is no real prophecy. Saying things in advance, impossible. Second thing, there are no real miracles. And if there is no prophecy and no miracles possible, then there is no God. And that is what modern theology wants to teach the church. God is dead. Was it Bishop Robinson who said that for the first time? But God is not dead. And there is prophecy. And there are miracles. And we see here that God in Ezra 1 says that his word might be fulfilled. Cyrus was mentioned more than 150 years before he was ever born. And 70 years, more than 70 years before this happened, He read in Jeremiah, Jeremiah 25, verse 11, that Jeremiah, before the Babylonian captivity, had to predict the following. Jeremiah 25, verse 11, And this whole land, Judah and Israel, Jerusalem, shall become a waste, an astonishment, and these nations shall serve the king of Babylon 70 years. Verse 12, perpetual desolation. And I will bring upon that land all my works, etc. We see here that God had not only predicted the name of the liberator, Cyrus, but that he had predicted the exact time of the liberation. 70 years, as is known to every Christian, 70 years lasted the Babylonian imprisonment, and then the people were released, as we read here in Ezra 1. And this was not a thing which was only detected after the event. I turn to another scripture in Daniel, Daniel 9. And I do this, beloved brothers and sisters, underline, to stress, the absolute trustworthiness of scripture, which is proven in scripture itself. Scripture is literally inspired, has been literally inspired, and it will be literally fulfilled. And we have a marvelous example of this trustworthiness and truthfulness of the word of God in this example here. Daniel 9, we read that this event of the return of the captives from Babylon was not only detected or realized after the event, but there was a believer, a faithful man, Daniel, who saw that the prophecy had to be fulfilled. Daniel 9, in the first year of Darius, that was the co-king of Cyrus the Persian, Darius the son of Casparus, of the seed of the Medes, who was made king over the realm of the Chaldeans, that's Babylon, in the first year of his reign, I, Daniel, understood by the books that the number of the years whereof the word of Jehovah came to Jeremiah the prophet for the accomplishment of the desolation of Jerusalem was 70 years. And I set my faith unto the Lord God to seek by prayer and supplication with fasting and sackcloth and ashes, and I prayed unto Jehovah my God, and I made my confession and said, and then follows one of the most wonderful prayers in the Old Testament. The three prayers of the post-exile generation begins with a prayer of Daniel and then it continues with Ezra in Ezra 9 and Nehemiah in Nehemiah 9, three times chapter 9, very simple, easy to keep in mind. But the first one was Daniel. He was still in Babylon. And he read, and it's quite a nice question to ask, how did he know the book of Jeremiah? How did it come, written in Jerusalem as it was, how did it come thousands of kilometers or miles, almost a thousand miles to Babylon? Because it was the word of God. There was a king who cut it into pieces and threw it into the fire, but it was not to be destroyed. It was rewritten what had been written. It is the word of God which can never be burned and can never be destroyed. And it came in a miraculous way, I can only say, to Babylon. To this high-positioned functionary at the royal court of Babylon and now Persia. And this high-positioned Daniel, this minister of I don't know what affairs, he reads the book of Jeremiah and says this is the word of God. In another way, it is a very interesting point to see how the inspired scriptures were put together to the canon of scripture, which today is also a very great question mark. The answer is very easy. The books written by inspired persons, by the Holy Spirit, were directly accepted by other writers of the Holy Scriptures. On the same level, they were acknowledged by those who were on their own, who were themselves writers of inspired scripture. Daniel was one of them. In the New Testament, you have Paul, who says in one sentence in 1 Timothy 5, the scripture says, Thou shalt not muzzle the ox which is threshing, and the worker is worthy his high. The first is from the book of Deuteronomy. That was the scripture of the Old Testament. But the second is from the book of the Gospel of Luke, who was a companion of Paul, and who had probably written it just before. And Paul takes it into his hands and says that is scripture, the word of God. He didn't quarrel with Luke and say, what did you write there? Give it to me so that I can control it. The great apostle Paul acknowledges the Gospel of Luke immediately as the word of God. And the second witness in the New Testament, the third of three witnesses, is Peter, 2 Peter 3. When he writes of all the epistles of Paul, and he was a writer himself, the great apostle, pillar of the assembly of Jerusalem. He knew all the epistles of Paul. He writes as our beloved brother Paul in all his writings. So he knew them all. And then he continues and says which those who are the ignorant turn about, as also the other scriptures. And the important word in this sentence is the word other. If he would have said which they turn around as the scriptures, then there would be a contrast between the writings of Paul and the scriptures, the Bible. But he says the other scriptures, putting by this little word, all the writings of Paul on the same level as scripture at that time, the Old Testament, and those books of the New Testament as existed. So we have three examples, and the word says by two or three witnesses everything is established. We have three witnesses of how the writings of the Old and the New Testament were accepted by other writers and put on the same level as that which existed already. That's what Daniel did with the book of Jeremiah. He had no doubt. He counted and said the 70 years are fulfilled. And he didn't look around and say, well, how can this happen? Just the Persians and Medes had just overthrown the kingdom of the Babylonians, probably in that night where Belshazzar had his victory. When he was killed at that night, he wasn't killed by his own servants, but he was killed by the Persians. Because in the world history of the Persians, it is written that the Persians in one night entered the city of Babylon without any difficulty and any problem and overwhelmed in that way, subjugated in that way the kingdom of Babylon. All this had just happened, and Daniel was not upset. He sat there reading Jeremiah as scripture and said, if God has said 70 years, they are now fulfilled, then it will happen. And he went down on his knees and confessed his guilt and the guilt of his father, and he prayed for grace for his people. And I cannot but think that this prayer might have been the real cause for Cyrus because he was at the court of Cyrus to move him to do what we read in the book of Ezra. So what we learn from the first verse of Ezra is, beloved ones, even in our times, the absolute trustworthiness and truthfulness of the word of God, even in our days. Let us not be untrustful, let us not be doubting, doubtful, but let us trust, let us put our hands on the word of God as Daniel did and as the others did, of whom we have read this afternoon and of whom we will read now, that the word of God, of which the psalmist says is eternally stable and firm in the heavens, is also stable and helpful for us in any situation. And you see, this is the foundation, the fundament of any revival, because weakness and failure stems from the fact that we do not rest on Scripture, that we deviate or that we do not trust Scripture enough, and then we become unstable and wavering and tossed about, as we have seen in Ephesians 4, by every wind of doctrine. And here this first verse shows us how wonderfully true and faithful the word of God is. Then the second point to which I would draw your attention, which always is very encouraging, is that we have, after this call went out, and of this just imagined, a people of a couple of million persons, who had been taken from Judah to Babylon, and they had stayed there 70 years in rather good conditions. They were not suppressed. Some of them, as one knows from world history, historical records, had put up businesses and had good families there. They were not in prison camps, we must not imagine. They were just placed, de-placed from one country to the other. That was the policy of those kings, to make them more, to subjugate the persons and to unroot them from their father, mother countries, and to bring them into other circumstances. But when we go back to Hezekiah, Sennacherib the king says, I will bring you in a country which is almost like paradise. And we know that the country along the Euphrates and the Tigris is a very, Babylon, Iraq, is a very fertile country. So they were not in bad circumstances outwardly, which explains one thing to which we will return later on, the relatively very, very small number of those who returned. The people were, must have counted a couple of millions. I don't venture to say how many, but I think it was a couple of, there were a couple of millions. And then this call goes out from Cyrus, and they leave everything, but then we see there are three sources of help for those who went. The first source of help is very astonishing in one point of view, from one point of view, in verse six, and all they that were about them strengthened their hands with articles of silver, with gold, with goods, and with beasts, and with precious things besides all that was willingly offered. There were thus people who did not go along with the remnant back to Jerusalem, back to Judah, to build the city and to build the house of God, as Cyrus has expressly said. They remained where they were, but still they gave help to those who left them, who went. And if one would like to apply this to our present day, how is it possible that people, that Christians who want to be faithful, can take help from those, and here it is clear that those who remained, were they the faithful ones, they who remained? I would not venture to say that. When God gives a call, go out of Babylon, as he will do in the future in chapter 18 of the Revelation, and they say, no, we stay here, we don't want to go out. But they had, for whatever reasons it may be, they had the possibility of helping their fellow countrymen when those left the country. And one could ask the question, how can that be? Can we take any help if we want to be faithful from those who are not so? If I may just give one example. I have in my library quite a few books written by gifted men, and also dictionaries and works of reference which have been written and edited by people with whom I would never be associated personally. But still they are quite helpful to me, and I would compare that, what we have here, to this kind that Christians who want to be faithful and true to their master, must not think that everything besides themselves is of no use. We see this here, but it's not, happily, it's not the only source of help they got. The second we find in verse 7. If we think of these things here, these vessels, which came originally from the temple in Jerusalem, they had all been made on the commandment of God himself. He had given to Moses, he had given to David later on for the temple, the exact measurement of everything which was needed of every vessel in the tabernacle and later on in the temple. It had all been made according to the commandment of God. And it is clear that if we look at them, from the brazen altar, to the lava, to the lampstand, to the golden altar, to the table of showbread, and the last, the ark of covenant in the holiest of holies, we all know that these are types of Christ and what he has done. These were the vessels of the temple. So, and all these had been taken away by Nebuchadnezzar when the people were brought, were taken into the Babylonian captivity. And they had been lost to the people of God. We have heard about Martin Luther and others in the Reformation time. Martin Luther, the German reformer, wrote a little tract in which he entitled On the Babylonian Captivity of Christendom. He had understood in a way that the Catholic system at that time had taken the believers, the church of God, so far away from the real truth that they were not anymore there where they should be. You know that Canaan is a type of the place, of the true Christian place, the heavenlies. That means that we have, it is not a type of heaven where we shall be in the future, but of heaven as we enjoy it today, the heavenly blessings which we enjoy today in Christ. And Martin Luther, when he wrote this tract about the Babylonian captivity of Christianity, of Christendom, he had understood a little bit of this, the distance at which the Christianity was with a view to the Bible. And he, in a way, he was used by God to bring many truths which had been, as it were, taken away to Babylon. He brought them back to Jerusalem, the justification by faith, the importance of the word of God alone. Those were, as it were, vessels which had been taken away. And if we go back 200 years, there were other vessels which have been brought back, which have been brought out of the treasure houses of the world, of the devil, one could say. One is the fact that we may expect the coming of the Lord each moment. This is one of the vessels, I would say, which have been recovered about 200 years ago, by the revival which the Lord gave at that time. At that time, that is now 200 years ago, I would say that at that time, for 1600 years, that means from 200 A.D. to the beginning of the 1800s, the truth of the coming of the Lord had been embodied, had been lost. There is no trace, as far as I am aware, of an expectance of the coming of the Lord to take the believers from the scene, before the judgment, in all the writings of Christianity after the second century until the beginning of the nineteenth century. It was a vessel which had been put away in the treasuries of Nebuchadnezzar. The truth of the one and only body of Christ, of the leading of the Holy Spirit in the meetings, and his only, not ordination, were all vessels which had been taken away by Nebuchadnezzar and had been recovered, and one could add to them. And God ordered it in this way, that he had to bring them out. And they were now at the disposal, not of everybody, not of the whole people. He didn't give them back to those who remained in Babylon, by no means. He gave them to those who said, we will go. That's revival. Obedience will bring blessing. Disobedience, self-will, will rob us of every true blessing. And the third source we find of help, we find in chapter 2, verse 68. That's the third source of help they got. And that was from their own midst. That's the third only. Chapter 2, verse 68. And some of the chief fathers, when they came to the house of Jehovah, which is in Jerusalem. Wonderful expression. What was there? Was there a house at Jerusalem? There was nothing but ruins. But the word of God says they came to the house of Jehovah. God saw it. Man didn't see it. And it wasn't there. It was not there, visible for the human eye. It was all in ruins. But God said they came to the house of Jehovah. Because there, and there only, was the spot where it had stood, where it was rebuilt, where it was destroyed again, and where it will stand in the millennium. That's the only place that is the earthly house of God. The temple at Jerusalem. But spiritually, it is the same thing. The assembly of God, the church of God, may be in ruins, but God sees it exactly as he wants it to see. How do we see it? How do you see it? How do I see it? Only a short remark, when they came to the house of Jehovah. But what a meaning, what a depth. But this is not the point. They offered freely for the house of God to set it up in its place. They gave after their ability to the treasure of the world, and then the exact amounts are given. Now we find that there is also willingness and liberality among those who had gone out. But this is the last point. And the Lord had not only made them willing to go, but he had also made them willing to give. May he do the same with us in our lives. We will be richly recompensed. The Lord will never be a debtor to us. The Lord will never have debts to us. We have debts to him, but the Lord will never be our debtor. He will always richly recompense those who give for him and for his house. This is the three kinds of contributions for those who are faithful, from sites from where they would not expect it. Not at the last, from their own list. That was the second point, after the trustworthiness of scripture. A third point is the chapter two. The whole of chapter two, and we find a practical, literal repetition of it in Nehemiah 7, gives us the numbers, the names, and the families of those who went out. I repeat, I don't know how many millions there were in Babylon. With the exception of Daniel and his three friends, no name is given, and they were there by special provision of God. There's no doubt about that. They were not unfaithful to Daniel, but God provided that they had to stay there, at least Daniel. But of those millions of Jews, and this is a very sad and touching thought, no name is recorded. They belonged to the people, the earthly people of God. But they were all from the wrong place, and God does not record their names. He has recorded them, but he did not deem it necessary to record them for us in his Word. But he deemed it necessary and edifying to name the names of the families of each and every Jew who left Babylon and who went back to Israel. And I repeat, it is a humbling but a very touching, touching thought that the Lord had counted them all. He gives the complete number in verse, chapter 2, verse 64. The whole congregation together was 42,360. Those were the faithful ones who left Babylon at the Word of God and went back to the place where God wanted his people to have, around his house in Jerusalem. Brothers and sisters, even if we are only very few, very few, do not be discouraged. The Lord takes knowledge of this. He has written it all down. He has it all written down. He doesn't need any books. There will be books opened in Revelation 20, but God doesn't need any books. We need them. He will show who is in his book at one day, the book of life. Although this is not the book of life here. This is another record. And he will show who is in the book of those who are lost. And you will change nothing. On the one, we can only cry hallelujah, but on the other, in the other book, you will not be able to change when you see your name lacking in the book of life. You can only change it now. Now is the time to be written in the book of life of the Lamb of God. That is the point. Now, whenever you hear his voice, don't harden your heart, but come to the Lord and trust in him, and you will be written, your name will be written in heaven, as the Lord said in comfort to his disciples. Our name is written in heaven. But here, beloved ones, it is not the book of life. It is here, if we could style it in any way, it is the book of the faithful. And I must say, brothers and sisters, it always touches me to see that he says 42,360. It is worthwhile remembering this number. God took note of every single family, and of every single man, and of the complete number of those who wanted to be faithful and obedient to his cause. What a wonderful strengthening thought this is, that they were all counted here. And then the fourth thing is also in this chapter two, in the last verse of that chapter, and the priests, and the Levites, and of the people. It says some of the people, but the word some isn't there. But they were only some, but the word some is not there in the original, of the people. And the singers, and the doorkeepers, and the Nethanim dwelt in their cities, and all Israel in their cities. The fourth thought is, all Israel in their cities. Now we must turn back to the history of Israel for another time. We know that Israel consisted of twelve tribes. Israel was the name given to Jacob by God, and he had twelve sons. And from these twelve sons came forth the people of Israel when it left Egypt, went through the desert, entered the land of Canaan, twelve tribes Israel. But then after Solomon died, his son Rehoboam, he was unfaithful to the Lord, he wanted to dominate the people, and God said the people shall be divided in two parts. Ten tribes will break forth, break off, and will be the northern kingdom, which was henceforth called Israel. Only two tribes, Judah and Benjamin, remained with the kings, the sons of David, and that was the kingdom of the two tribes, the kingdom of Judah. And the ten tribes of Israel, the northern tribes, were taken away to Assyria in 721 B.C. Whereas the two tribes, Judah and Benjamin, with Jerusalem as their capital, the sons of David as kings, were only taken away to Babylon between 606 and 586 B.C. So what we turn is clear. There were only a couple of members of the tribe of Judah, of the tribe of Benjamin, and of the tribe of Levi, the priests and the Levites. The ten tribes of Israel, the northern of the divided kingdoms, is lost until the day of today, the present day. And this little remnant from the two or three tribes, Judah, Benjamin, and Levi, comes back, again 42,360, and they come to the country, they go to their cities, and God says, all is well. How is that possible? How can God style a fraction of his people, a fraction of a fraction of his people? All is well. How is that possible? But it's here. We find it in several more references to it. The explanation is very serious, maybe hurting, but also very comforting. The rest in Babylon were the people of God. They are the people of God, the earthly people of God, naturally. But in type, they are a type of the heavenly people. They are a type of the earth, difficult for us. They were the people of God. But they were there where God did not want them. And for him, what counts is obedience. That is the answer. I hope it will not be hurting to anybody present tonight. But I hope it will be comforting to everybody present here, that God looks at his people his way, divine way. And he says, I have chosen you, I have redeemed you. That is my grace. And in my word, I have designed for you the pathway you have to walk. And if you deviate, there is always a way back. But I will never, never recognize what man has set up. That is the explanation for this verse. That God says, I will never recognize what man has set up, or what has been the result of deviation from my will and my word. But I will always happily acknowledge those who are there where I want them to be. All Israel. There was only a very small fraction. But they were what God saw, where God saw his people. And we see that the following point, the fifth point, that is the end, that they went to Jerusalem, chapter 3, verse 1, and when the seventh month came, the children of Israel, again, were in the city. The people gathered together as one man in Jerusalem. We see that they were in the good of the city. They were not only there, and God recognized them, but they also practiced the oneness, the union, they were members of one people, and they gathered there where God wanted his people to gather, in the city of Jerusalem. This is the place of which God says in Deuteronomy 21 times, if I have counted rightly, the place which God, Jehovah, thy God, shall choose to make dwell his name there. To let his name dwell there. And that was the chosen place where they gathered as one man. What a beautiful picture. Those few people there, relatively few, if we look at the number of the entire people. And what they did there, they came there to the house of God, as we have seen in chapter 2, in chapter 1 already. But what did they see there? I like to imagine this city, some of you may have seen it in its present state, it was one desolated, ruined, and desert place. It was absolutely demolished. The walls torn down, the houses burnt and broken, the temple did not exist anymore, it was all, only one heap of ruins. Some decades ago in North Africa, I think in Tunisia, the town of Agadir was demolished by an earthquake. And it was so entirely ruined that the authorities said, it's no use rebuilding the old town, we'll build a new town next to it. But they didn't, it was just one heap of ruins. They could have thought that, that it's no use rebuilding this town, it has been so demolished there's no use in it. But would it have been right in the eyes of God? No. So these few people had to dig their way through all the ruins. And I love this thought, brothers and sisters, to find the foundations of the altar there where it had stood. There was no other place. And it cost them, I think, much work to find that place. And that's what they did. They erected the altar in its place. For what purpose? To burn on its burnt offerings. One could have expected sinner offerings, humiliation. No. They knew that God was a God who wants to be praised, to be adored, to be worshipped. And the Lord Jesus said to a sinner, to the basest of sinners, the Father seeketh worshippers. Maybe you have thought, why did he tell us this basis of women? Because he doesn't take the noble things of this world, but he makes of us priests and kings to worship him. And that is the noblest task of a Christian. We've heard about gospel preaching, and we couldn't preach the gospel too much, but the noblest task of a Christian is worship. And that is what we find here. And how little of it we find in Christianity. Do we have it, do we know it in our lives, that we worship the Father through the Son and in the Son by the Holy Spirit, in our families, in our private lives, and especially there where he has, the place he has chosen to make his name dwell there, that where the sweet odor of the sacrifices of the burnt offering can go up. And it was all, it closes as we close. For more information, visit www.fema.org …