What do we do with those? political or otherwise, We have no shame. They can't be convicted.
Well That's part of the story. In the first section of Ezra, because they must be confronted and denied. Uh The freedom Of uncontested evil that will spread.
Somebody's got to be the salt of the earth. or else they'll consume. as much of the earth as they can. This is Cross Reference Radio with our pastor and teacher, Rick Gaston. Rick is the pastor of Calvary Chapel, Mechanicsville.
Pastor Rick is currently teaching through a topical series. Please stay with us after today's message to hear more information about Cross-Reference Radio, specifically how you can get a free copy of this teaching. But for now, let's join Pastor Rick as he begins a brand new study called Refusing the Ungodly.
Well, we continue the question and answers. This is the final question, but I think it's best addressed in two parts.
So I'll read the question. I'll give the title and then we'll proceed. I would like to offer a suggestion. My thoughts are of the current political and military situation that seems to spread so much fear. an apprehension among those who attempt to stay abreast as watchers of the wall.
I think a semi-topical study based on the book of Ezra and other biblical leaders whose actions. directed by our God might be A benefit to many. It is comforting to me to know His will is being performed. through the globe regardless of how dark the future may seem.
Well, uh essentially a character study. On Ezra. I really like the character studies, but I don't think. My listeners like them as much as I do. When we did, for instance, Asa, Hezekiah, Josiah.
I don't think they got the attention that I would like to have seen on a character. There's so much doctrine, so much help in the character studies, but. I must be doing something wrong.
So I'm going to Give an overview of Ezra chapters 1 through 6 in this session and then. six through ten in the next session The first six chapters are about Zerubbabel. They're not about Ezra. He writes about it, but he comes almost 60 years after Zerubbabel. And so I'll address the submission, really not a question.
It merits two sessions. First, as I mentioned, it's a rubber bell. He overcomes the building of the second Jewish Temple in the face of dangerous protesters. When I prepare for this, I'll just do an overview of Ezra. I forgot how much fact-checking I'd have to do.
Ezra is one of the most complicated in such a short period of time. But I'll take some of that out on you later. The second session, if things go as planned, will be, as I mentioned, 7 through 10, where Ezra enters the picture and exerts influence, and it's the influence Of a Bible-based servant. And so he's always an exciting character in the scriptures. Political Bible heroes.
Well, that's part of the submission. And Moses, Elijah, Urijah, you say, who's Erijah?
Well, he was killed. During the days of Jeremiah. They got him. They didn't get to Jeremiah. He fled to Egypt and they tracked him down.
Then there's Daniel, Ezra, Esther, Nehemiah, all political. Ministers of God. Whole books are dealing with The government In Israel, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Hosea, Amos. Malachi.
So, of course, we'll get some of Zachariah Haggai tonight, too. And God can use unbelievers to confront evil. And we see that in books like Jeremiah, for example. But the righteous are supposed to. be the greater influences.
of such behavior. And those against God and decency. It cannot be shamed into correction. I mean, they sent sometimes, it's very difficult. It's a divine act.
And what are we supposed to do with that as believers? What do we do with those? political or otherwise. who have no shame. They can't be convicted.
Well That's part of the story. In the first section of Ezra, because they must be confronted and denied The freedom Of uncontested evil that will spread.
Somebody's got to be the salt of the earth. or else they'll consume. as much of the earth as they can. The old saying, any dead fish can float downstream, it takes a live fish to swim against the current. The New Testament compels us to believe in the God.
who counts the very Hairs on your head. Which I find a little insulting. Only a little bit. Salt of the earth Aided by decent unbelievers many times. Versus A demon possessed political party And the people that Support it.
That's where we are today. And so these are relative lessons coming from Ezra because they had to deal with hostilities too, trying to stop them from worshiping. The devil make ghouls out of people. and those ghouls will love the deadly Kool Aid that they drink. Jim Jones poisoned over nine hundred people with Kool Aid.
So, summarizing Ezra, not giving a verse-by-verse commentary. And in some of the verses, I'll leave off. Information that requires more explanation, maybe a king's name or a location or something that really omitting it doesn't do any damage to the point being made. But it will help speed up things and also get to the points to be made. How the ancient godly Jews repelled The wicked In the promised land after they came back from their seven-year captivity in Babylon.
So, The first chapter in Ezra, the rebuilding of the temple. starts off with a political fulfillment. Where The king Cyrus of Persia is mentioned.
Now, Isaiah named him a hundred years before he was born, over a hundred years. Before Cyrus was even born. Jeremiah comes along. And says over 70 years before he comes along and says, He's going to be the one. that brings the Jews back to the promised land.
And you can look up Isaiah 44, 28. Jeremiah 29:10. There are other verses, but those are good enough to start with.
So, this generation of Jews that will be coming back to the promised land, the first wave. Just under 50,000 of them. And when they go to rebuild the temple, it's not like building a church where you got bricks and boards. These are massive stones.
So, they're going to need a lot of muscle, a lot of heavy labor will be involved. and to reestablish public worship. We get these numbers from Ezra chapter 2. It is a sacred work. And that's how they viewed it as a sacred work To those Jews leaving Persia to come back to the promised land.
The Bible And his teachings meant something to them, otherwise, referring to Cyrus. And Jeremiah, as Ezra does in the first verse, would be meaningless. But it is not meaningless, it's meaningful. The Bible means something to them. It takes Work to begin to benefit from what the Bible has a say.
Then it takes more work to pull it off long term, to persevere, to endure.
So The Jews, Ezra and Who puts together this history of Zerubbabel? In the first six chapters, he points to God's timing. By moving the heart of the Persian king Cyrus. And it happened just as the Prophet said it would. Specifically, back to Jerusalem to build the temple.
Those are in the orders of the king in the first chapter of Ezra. In verse 3, we read the king's part of his decree: let him go up to Jerusalem and build a house of Yahweh, God of Israel. The hymn there refers to any of the Jews who wanted to go back. Potate that Thousand mile journey, literally. A thousand miles.
back to the promised land From parts, whatever part of the remnants of the Babylonian kingdom that remained. which was quite substantial.
so whoever wanted to return was free to do so. Later in chapter 5, we'll read: Let the house of God be rebuilt on its former site. As you read the writings, of the king's responses in favor of the Jews, In the book of Ezra, you know, there are Jews back in Babylon writing this out for the king to sign. The language is clearly. Influenced by Jewish believers.
Daniel is still alive at this time or. If he's not, yeah, he's probably still alive at this time. And certainly not only a great influence. on the Babylonian and Persian kingdom, but on the so many Jews in high places throughout. The Persian Kingdom.
Their temple was to be The statement of faith. That's what the Jewish temple was supposed to be. From a distance, you could see the smoke rising from the sacrifices. Guaranteed morning and evening. At the very least, And yet At this time It was a pile of rubble.
giant stones, big as big as pickup trucks and bigger. Lying in piles. And this is what the Jews were returning to. 50,000. It's a drop in the bucket to how many millions of them were dispersed.
Outside of That promised land.
So, should we ever, and this is the application that comes out of character study, should we ever find our testimony in ruins? May God send faithful people to help us rebuild it. And this is the part. Uh Galatians 6.1. That Comes to life.
It's such a Book of Ezra and Nehemiah of putting things back together. You who are spiritual, restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness. How many Christians disregard that?
Well, they sinned. I'll never trust them again. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You can hear the growls and the snarls. In their mercy.
That kind of mercy is not good stuff.
Well, I don't want to be merciless against them though. In verse 5 of the first chapter, and that's what we're overviewing. All whose spirits God has moved arose to go up and build the house of Yahweh, which is in Jerusalem. The part that stands out. Are the spirits, that living spirit in the person longing for God, wanting that.
Emblem of worship, that statement of their faith. Reduilt. And now we come to the second chapter of Ezra. Where the first repatriates under Zerubbabel's leadership are named.
Well, they're not each one named, but their houses are named. For instance, Haggai and Zechariah, they're not named, but they're in this group. Zerubbabel was the Jewish civil leader overseeing the repatriation. Yeshua was the Spiritual leader. Zerubbabel was a descendant of David.
In the direct Line of ancestry of Jesus Christ. He's mentioned in Matthew 1, he's mentioned in Luke 3. And so you tell a new believer, if you tell them, hey, start in Matthew, skip the first 16 verses, because those are names you probably don't know about yet. But later, when you circle back around, You'll know these peep many of them. And there'll be a benefit, but now it's just Goin' be very hard reading.
You might want to skip that section. You don't have to. Also, in chapter two, mentioned returning with Zerubbabel. Our priests, Levites, singers, court, and temple servants from the days of Solomon, some. and others Join this Exodus with The Urim and the Thumum, the lights and the perfection of the priests, they'll have that.
So it's a spiritual deal, the Book of Espirites, not a historical document. It's a document about God's people. And that is always a document about God. Then we come to chapter three, and the first thing that gets built. is the altar.
The altar of the Temple. These people trekked, as I mentioned, over a thousand miles. For several months Women, children, the elderly. We know many of the elderly are there because they're going to be present when the temple foundation is laid and they're going to have a say-so in this or say something. A difficult terrain also that they had to pass through.
to the Promised Land with one thing in mind. Restoration They could see themselves worshiping at the rebuilt temple. That's just like we do today. You know, we can just see ourselves. Like when you buy something, I can see myself in that hat or that jacket or whatever it is you're buying.
Or maybe you could see yourself in some ministry position. It would happen. but not without Confrontations against evil, there's always the case, there's always a troublemaker. And so the altar was the first thing to be built. It's essential to worship.
For the Jew, there was no worship without it. The same for the Christian. Without the cross of Christ, there's no worship. We come through Christ. No man comes to the Father except through me, and you don't get through him unless you come to the cross.
Well Verse 2 of Ezra III, then Jeshua, the spiritual leader, and Zerubbabel, the civil leader. Both lovers of God. Arose and built the altar of the God of Israel to offer burnt offerings on it, as it is written in the law of Moses, the man of God. You gotta really enjoy. Moses, long after his death, the Jews just the man of God.
the servant of God. I don't think he gets enough attention. in the Bible. The dynamo that he was, Well, our cross, as I mentioned, our altar is Christ, the cross of Christ, Hebrews 13. We have an altar.
from which those who serve the tabernacle have no right to eat. And Paul is saying to the Jews: if you want to go down to the temple and offer your sacrifices, you have at it, but you have disqualified yourself from the benefits of salvation through Jesus Christ. You can't have them both. You can't say the blood of bulls is just as important as the blood of the Son of God. You'll pick one.
And An interesting part about this alter is that before The building materials for the building was ordered, their worshiping at the altar. We know that from verse seven. I guess I should Read it out loud. It's such an important part. They also gave money to The masons and the carpenters, food, drink, and oil to the people of Sidon and Tyre, to bring cedar logs from Lebanon to the sea.
to joppa according to the permission Which they had from Cyrus king of Persia, and that's for the building of the temple.
Now they're not going to let unbelievers Have anything to do with the building of this temple, but it's important to understand: unbelievers were supplying them with the materials. I mentioned before, there are decent unbelievers. True believers get things done in this world with the help of unbelievers. Let's look at the life of Paul and the Centurions that. were around him.
Not all of them, but Well, maybe all of them. Anyway, coming back to this, the sacrifices. were made on their rebuilt altar, their gaining steam. Before public worship. There had to be personal worship.
You may come across somebody that says, Well, we have our family altar.
Well, that's fine. Do you have a personal one? Or are you selfish and obnoxious and self-righteous? Are you of any use in the body of Christ, or are you an amputation? It means something these things.
A Brahm He marked his arrival in the promised land, with an altar, and that's Abraham, before God changed his name from Abram. Righteous or exalted Father, the Father of many. He's known as Abram. But I'm going to say Abraham. It's easier to say.
Genesis twelve, verse two Then Yahweh appeared to Abraham, Okay, says a brom. and said To your descendants I will give this land. There's the promise land. And Abraham. built an altar to Yahweh.
who had appeared to him Place of worship. but not without blood Not without the sacrifice of a life. And nowadays you get to see all of these cute Internet postings of animals that you didn't think had such personality, and they do. And they're sacrificed. It was a bold Amen to the promise of God.
When God promised Abraham, his amen had blood on it. And his grateful wasn't his. And that's what the cross says. Your salvation has blood on it, and we are grateful. is not ours.
Ours is not worth We couldn't pay for the sins of others. Couldn't pay for our own sins. A promise is the shadow of things to come. And the New Testament talks just like that.
So just like us, Wanting to worship Scripturally in peace with freedom So were these Jews. The scriptures of God. That was their reality. Their life. And here the confrontation with evil begins because Satan can't help himself.
He can't resist. Attacking innocents. That's why The young, the youth, are high value targets. For such a monster. Verse 3 of chapter 3 in Ezra.
Though fear had come upon them because of the people of those countries, They set the altar on his bases. And they offered burnt offerings on it to Yahweh both the morning and evening burnt offerings.
So they're nervous about their freedom and the faith. They had the king's decree, but they're still afraid these people are going to attack us. Because that's what the evil does. The evil people of today. They don't want you to get away with believing things without their participation, approval, say-so, and corruption.
And if you dare try it. They're going to come for you. And God says, I'll come for you too. And I will comfort you, and I will use you. It may cost your blood.
1 Corinthians chapter 3. Talking about the foundation that he mentions here, the basis for the altar. The Christian looks at this and says, in unity, For no other foundation can anyone lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. He's not only our altar, He's the foundation of the altar. The altar sits upon him.
The cross is nothing. Without Christ, There are thousands of crosses in the ancient Roman world. Spartacus and his rebels, they were crucified. by the thousands But there's only one cross of Christ. Only a drop of his blood was necessary, and it was more than a drop that he gave.
By the way, it is early fall at the time that they're making this offering, like this time of year, September, October. And the reason why that comes up in the story is because within seven months the enemy is going to really ramp up their attacks. And so we come to the second part of chapter 3: the temple foundation. They have the sacrifices and the altar.
Now they're going to, again, these are enormous stones. that are used for the foundation. Verse 10 of chapter 3: The builders laid the foundation of the temple of the Lord. The mere Let's fight. of this new foundation.
It broke the hearts of the old timers. We get that in chapter 3 and verse 12, but many of the priests and Levites. And heads of the fathers' houses, old men. who had seen the first temple wept with a loud voice when The foundation of the temple was laid before their eyes. Yet many shouted for joy.
Aloud for joy, like a stadium raw Well, they didn't see the first temple, but the Old Times said this is nothing. compared to what God did through Solomon and we lost it all. We threw it away. And the prophets of God couldn't stop it. And here we are.
After this thousand-mile journey. Back to worshiping, and we praise God for that. We thank God for that. But still there's this emotional debt That comes with looking at what could have been, what should have been, and now what is. You can identify with them.
This is real life stuff. Seven months after the altar. They've laid the foundation. Trouble lurks on the outskirts. Ver chapter four of Ezra The hostilities to set back the temple work.
And you know what? It's going to succeed. For sixteen years it's gonna succeed. The lessons are astounding. They tell us, don't let this happen.
In some places, they say, let this happen. We know what we want from the story. If we were participants, we know what we would like to have done differently. We would Monday morning quarterback our way through the scripture. And that's just what God wants.
He wants us to look at the plays from the last game. and not make those mistakes. This fourth chapter describes the opening of the hostilities and the long setback to the work. And the problem is that in those 16 years, it didn't really bother them. They weren't happy with it.
They built their houses. God will raise up Haggai and that old prophet will point it out. Uh Thanks for tuning in today to Cross Reference Radio, where Pastor Rick has some answers for various questions that have been asked. We can't fully express how grateful we are that you've been with us today. But if you're ever looking for more teaching and content from us, you're welcome to subscribe to our podcast.
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