"Plundering the Babylonians" Ezra 7 Sunday Evening Worship Service

A few figures in the history of Israel cast as long a shadow as Ezra the scribe.

Not only in the church, but also in Jewish tradition, he's often compared to Moses, none less than Moses himself, a central figure in the Old Testament, central figure in the Jewish faith.

There's even a stream of intertestamental Judaism.

There's an apocryphal book called Second Ezra that attributes the writing of all of the scriptures to Ezra and even 70 additional secret books.

I just tell you that, just so you have a frame of reference, that the figure that we're finally introduced to in Ezra chapter 7, the figure for whom this name takes its book this book takes its name, is a massive figure in God's redemptive program.

Ezra 7 · chapter mention

Through the rest of Ezra, chapter 7 through 10, he's going to take center stage.

Ezra 7 · chapter mention

Throughout the rest of the next book in the biblical canon, the book of Nehemiah, he is the partner in crime, the partner reformer of the land of Israel with Nehemiah.

He is a major figure in the history of Israel.

Moreover, if Ezra is in fact the author of the book of Ezra and Nehemiah, as many of us suspect, and if he is in fact the final compiler of the Psalms, as many have traditionally understood, then he is one of, if not the last individuals to lay his hand to the Old Testament canon before it was passed on through the ages and on down to us.

In other words, as we finally get introduced to the figure of Ezra in this text tonight, we're introduced to a person who was used in an absolutely pivotal way in the history of God's redemptive plan in the world.

And I'd submit to you as we open the Bible tonight and we read of this figure Ezra that a paradigm, a lens through which you could look at this text is you could ask yourself, what kind of a person does God choose to use in such a pivotal way in his redemptive purpose?

What kind of a person does God delight to use in such a mighty and powerful way?

And I think as we look at the figure of Ezra through that lens, we'll learn a number of lessons for our lives, what kind of people we would be to please the Lord and be used by Him.

Well, let me give you a quick outline as we're gonna walk through the text of Ezra chapter 7.

Ezra 7 · chapter mention

It's a long chapter.

We'll go through the whole of it tonight.

There are a number of opportunities for me to land the plane and to spend the evening, but I'll try to keep it moving as best as I can.

What we're gonna see as we go through this text is three little hooks from which we can hang our thoughts.

We'll be introduced to Ezra the Jew.

We'll see his Jewish introduction.

We'll also read a letter sent by the none less than the king of an empire, the Persian Empire, and we'll see that Ezra is not just a Jew, but he's also commissioned as a Persian.

And finally, we'll conclude by getting an insight into Ezra's heart.

He's a Jew, he's a Persian, but as he finally tells us at the end of the chapter, Ezra is a worshiper of Yahweh, someone who in his heart delights in Yahweh and longs to do his will.

Well, let's begin to look through Ezra chapter 7.

Ezra 7 · chapter mention

If you look down at your Bibles, look at chapter 7 and verse 1.

First, we're going to see his Jewish introduction.

Look with me beginning in Ezra 7, verse 1.

Ezra 7:1

We read this.

Now, after this, and you can stop right there, because we ought to say one thing about that.

It's been a couple weeks since we've been in Ezra.

And in fact, between the end of Ezra chapter 6 and Ezra chapter 7, 60 years have passed.

Ezra 6 · chapter mention Ezra 7 · chapter mention

The completion of the temple finally happened in Ezra chapter 6, and 60 years have passed before we come to meet Ezra in chapter 7.

Ezra 6 · chapter mention

There's a new emperor on the throne.

Many things have changed in both in the land of Israel and throughout the Persian Empire.

There's some significant things that have changed.

You could just draw a line.

I've drawn a line between chapter 6 and 7 in my Bibles and written 60 years.

And it would do us well, I think, perhaps, just to remember what's happened in the book of Ezra.

In chapter 1, there's this decree from the Emperor Cyrus for the Jews who had been in exile in Babylon that they can go back to their land.

Chapter 2, they finally do go back to the land and there's senses taken.

Chapters 3, 4, and 5, they begin to build the temple, but it happens very slowly because there's opposition.

Finally, in chapter 6, they're able to complete the temple upon the spurring on of the prophets that God had raised up, Haggai and Zechariah, that spurred the people to work and be bold and courageous and trust the promises of God and to complete the building of the temple.

It's dedicated in chapter 6, and things seem okay, and then 60 years pass.

And we get to chapter 7, and Ezra is going to rise up, and what we're going to find is we get to chapter 8, 9, and 10.

Things weren't well in Israel, and God raised up Ezra at just the right time in order to achieve a specific purpose in his redemptive plan.

And by the way, incidentally, we might note that the reason that this book that's named for Ezra, the reason that we don't meet him until chapter 7 is that he wasn't alive for any of the events that had happened up until now.

Ezra and all of those who are going with him back to the land, none of them were born when the temple was first dedicated.

So, this is the Ezra that we're meeting.

What is it that Ezra is going to do?

Well, I think we can begin to see what Ezra is going to do if we just remember that we were introduced to this theme that runs through the book of Ezra in the very first chapter.

Ezra chapter 1, verse 1 says that according to the word of Jeremiah the prophet that said, after 70 years the people would go back, so the word of the Lord would be fulfilled, then this pro this decree comes forth from Cyrus in order to fulfill the word of the Lord.

Ezra 1:1

So the theme that's running as an undercurrent through the book of Ezra is that God is acting in history to fulfill the word of his prophets.

And upon the completion of the temple in Ezra chapter 6, you can ask yourself, so is that it?

Ezra 6 · chapter mention

Have all of God's prophecies regarding the land of Israel, the Jews, and his redemptive purposes in the world been fulfilled?

And obviously the answer is no.

And so after 60 years, God raises up another person, another significant individual in the course of history.

And I think we can, even before we get into his story, we can as an anticipation of what we're going to read, we could suggest that what Ezra is going to do is fulfill the next stage in the fulfillment of God's prophecies.

Well, let's begin to read and let's see if that's what exactly what happens.

Look at the rest of verse 1.

We can finally get past the first three words now.

Now, after this, in the reign of Artaxerxes, king of Persia, Ezra, the son of Sariah, son of Ezariah, son of Hilkiah, there's a lot of names that are going to follow.

And by the way, maybe I can put some of your minds at ease as we're reading a list of Jewish names.

Did you know that there is no such thing as botching a transliterated Hebrew name?

Some of you get intimidated when you read a line of genealogies in the Old Testament because these sound crazy.

I'm sure I'm mispronouncing them.

No, not possible.

You can't mispronounce one of these names.

These are transliterated.

Do you know what these names are?

I mean, for example, Phineas, that's not his name.

His name is Pineus.

What?

His name isn't Phineas.

These are transliterated names from Hebrew.

What that means is you can't mispronounce them.

You can say them however you want, as long as you do it with confidence.

We all believe you.

Let's carry on.

Verse 1.

He's the son of Sariah, son of Azariah, son of Hilkiah, son of Shalom, son of Zedek, son of Ahitob, son of Emariah, son of Azariah, son of Mariah, son of Zariah, some there's a lot of eyes.

Son of Uzi, son of Buki, son of Abishua, son of Phineas, son of Eliezer, son of Aaron the chief priest.

This Ezra went up from Babylon.

He was a scribe skilled in the law of Moses that the Lord, the God of Israel, had given, and the king granted him all that he asked, for the hand of the Lord his God was on him.

This Ezra.

This is the Ezra that God is going to use to fulfill the next stage of his redemptive purposes.

And we must we should ask the question, why a genealogy?

Well, I hope that if you've been here on Sunday mornings, you have learned that genealogies are indeed very important.

They're in the Bible for a reason.

Number of things that we could say.

Remember, I said at the beginning, there's a number of opportunities for me to detour and to never move on in the text.

This is one of them, because there's a lot we could say about this genealogy.

But I'll just say this.

One of the reasons this is here is to verify that Ezra has the credentials to function as a priest, which is exactly what he needs to do in order to fulfill God's mission for him through the rest of the chapter.

Notice that Sariah is the first person mentioned in his genealogy.

Sariah, 2 Kings chapter 25 tells us was the final high priest in Israel before Nebuchadnezzar destroyed the temple, and he took Sariah and his sons to Babylon as captive, killed Sariah, and then kept his sons in captivity.

2 Kings 25 · chapter mention

But those sons stayed alive and they continued to have sons, and Ezra is one of those descendants, the great, great, great, great grandson of the final high priest of Israel.

And God is now raising him up, and he's going to send him back to Israel to tend to the newly constructed temple.

Really, one of the things you can note about this genealogy is that it says more about God than it says about Ezra.

It proves that God is faithful to fulfill his promises.

Not one of God's words will fall.

Not only does God fulfill his promise to reconstruct the temple, but he fulfills his promise to preserve the high priestly line and to preserve the right priesthood in the temple as he originally established it.

But I want you to notice something even more personal about Ezra when we get this in verse 6.

Notice just a couple things that the text says about Ezra as a person.

You see, in verse 6, the very first thing we learn is that he is a scribe skilled in the law of Moses that the Lord the God of Israel had given.

The word skilled is interesting.

It's literally a word that means fast or quick.

The idea is that he is quick to be able to grasp what's in the Word of God.

He's out there, his mind is searching the scriptures.

He's quick to be able to understand what's there and to put together matters to understand the revelation that God has given in the scriptures.

So he's not a prophet receiving new revelation.

He's a scribe who has the scriptures and is diligently searching them, understanding them, and applying them to his life and teaching them to others.

And you'll notice that this is a theme that runs through the rest of the chapter.

Eight times in this chapter, eight times, over and over and over and over and over and over and over.

Ezra is so is associated with the Word of God.

This is the kind of person he is.

When you think of Ezra, you think he is a Bible man.

And just incidentally, as as I've been studying this, that's one of the one of the applications I think is evident for us.

One of the ways in which I was challenged by reading this text is when people bring up my name, the people who know me best, my family and my friends who know me best, bring up my name, I wonder what the first thing to come to their mind is.

Ryan.

He really loves fill in the blank.

I've been challenged in reading this text.

I hope, I I want to aspire that the kind of person I'm known as is a person who loves Christ and loves the word of Christ.

That's the kind of person I want to be.

That's the kind of person Ezra is.

That's the kind of person that God delights to use, is a kind of person who is known as, a person who desires the word of God, who loves the word of God, who loves God and loves his word.

Well, notice the next thing that the text says about him is not only is he a scribe skilled in the law of Moses, but also it says that he asked something of the king.

The king granted to him all that he asked.

And what we're going to see in the rest of the chapter is that he asked to take a trip to Israel and to do something for the temple.

So we see that he is a person who is publicly in the court of the Empire of Persia, not only skilled in the law of the Lord, but he's also a skilled administrator, able to ask something of the king of Persia and to get it.

This is a really interesting individual.

This is a skilled, multifaceted, wise person.

And finally, the last thing you see in this little introductory paragraph is at the end of verse 6.

Really, what's lying behind all of this?

His skill in the Word of God, his skill in acting out the Word of God and his job and in the world is that, look at the last line.

The Lord, the hand of the Lord his God was on him.

The hand of the Lord was on him.

And this is the second theme that runs through the rest of this text and the rest of the book of Ezra and Nehemiah.

Over and over, eight times through the rest of Ezra and Nehemiah, we find that Ezra and Nehemiah are acting successfully in the land, because they are people of the book, and the hand of the Lord is on them.

They're people of the book, and the hand of the Lord is on them.

We're going to explore that connection a little bit more as we go through the rest of the text.

But having made those observations, let's continue on as we get to know this Jew that God has raised up to accomplish his purposes.

Let's look through the rest of verses seven through ten.

You notice verse seven, uh, there's a little interruption here in the introduction of Ezra that tells us what Ezra is going to do, that we'll explore in some detail.

So I'll go through verse seven through nine very quickly.

Verse seven says, And there went up also with him to Jerusalem in the seventh year of Artaxerxes the king, some of the people of Israel, and some of the priests and the Levites, the singers, the gatekeepers, and the temple servants.

And Ezra came to Jerusalem in the fifth month, with which was in the seventh year of the king, and on the first day of the first month he began to go up from Babylonia, and on the first day of the fifth month he came to Jerusalem, for the good hand of his God was on him.

He successfully accomplished what he asked from the king, was able to gather a group of people, moved to Israel, and he arrived, according to Persian dating, in 458 BC.

Incidentally, I want to get to verse 10 in a second.

But have you heard a single word so far that sounds entirely different from your lived experience as a believer in the God of Israel?

And what I mean is, do you have you read anything about what we would call miracles?

Have you read anything so far about prophetic words?

Something that we ought to just note as we read through the rest of these books is that the rest of Ezra and Nehemiah basically look much like our experience.

They're not encountering radical supernatural miracles like in the time of Jesus and Elijah and Elisha.

Haggai and Zechariah have been dead for decades.

Malachi is going to be raised up, but he seems to be the last prophet.

Basically, they are functioning the same way that we do.

Not waiting around for new revelation, not waiting around for a supernatural display or miracle, but they are reading the written revelation in the Word of God, believing it and acting on it.

And then they're saying over and over that the hand of the Lord is on them.

How do they know that?

Well, they know it because God's promised that he's going to bless people who meditate on the law of the Lord and put it into action.

His hand will be on them and he'll cause them to prosper in their way.

And that's exactly what's happening.

What we're getting here through the rest of Ezra and Nehemiah, and we also get in the book of Esther, which is written in about the same time period, is a model for how we live life in the church age.

Where we're not sitting around waiting for a new revelation or sitting around waiting for a supernatural miracle.

We are believing the word of God, acting on it, and knowing that as we do that, the hand of the Lord is on us to bless us and prosper our way.

Ezra is absolutely a model for godly living for us.

And I think that's especially true as we finally get to verse 10 at the end of this introduction to this incredible Jew God raised up.

Look at verse 10.

For Ezra had set his heart to study the law of the Lord and to do it and to teach his statutes and rules in Israel.

That's an awesome verse.

For some of you, this is probably a life verse for you.

I want to spend just a moment on it before we move to the rest of the text.

But before we look at any further in this verse, there's a very important word that you need to notice.

It's the first word, it's a little word that connects verse 9 to verse 10.

The end of verse 9 says that all that Ezra's doing is prospering because the hand of his God was on him.

Verse 10 says, For Ezra had set his heart to study the law of the Lord and to do it and teach it.

For.

In other words, because God's hand is on Ezra because Ezra had set himself to study, to understand, to believe, to do, to practice.

He had set himself to be a Bible person.

There is a causal connection here.

God puts his hand on the person who sets himself to study and put into practice his word.

What an example for us.

What an example for us.

You know, I said at the beginning that I think a good paradigm through which to read Ezra 7 is to ask what kind of a person is God delight to use.

Ezra 710 is the kind of person that God delights to use.

God delights to use a person who sets his heart to study the law of the Lord, to do it, to teach his statutes and rules in Israel.

I think it'd be worth just looking at each of these verbs for just a moment.

There's there's a a real model here for us for the kind of person that God uses.

And it starts in it really, it starts internally.

If you look at verse 10, it says, For Ezra set his heart to study the law of the Lord.

And that word for set is it's a common word, but it's not usually used for something inside of a person.

It's usually used externally for establishing a building or for establishing an army.

And that's the word that is used for Ezra's heart.

He made this firm resolution.

He's not going to build a city, he's going to set his heart, he's going to establish his heart to know the word of God.

And of course, the word heart is not merely the in a trivial way that it gets used sometimes in our culture.

The word heart in Hebrew usage is primarily intellectual, but extends to the whole of your person because where your mind goes, there your whole person goes.

What your mind is on controls your actions.

And so Desrah has set his heart, set his mind, set his affection, set his will, set his desires to know the word of God and to do it.

I think it's important that we start where the Bible starts.

We start with our heart, and we ask, do I have a heart that longs to know God by knowing his word?

Do I have a heart that desires to please God, that loves Christ, that loves the gospel, knows that I'm a sinner, sees that Christ is the only Savior and comes empty-handed and embraces Jesus.

And now I want to know him, and the way he's revealed himself to me is through this revelation, and he's given me a spirit to open the eyes of my heart to behold more and more of the hope, inheritance, and power that I have in him.

And he does this through the word, and so I love God's word and I want to know God's word.

We start with the heart.

Do I desire him?

Do I long for him?

But I want to make a note here.

I think it's very important that we don't stop there and just say, Do I desire him?

And the reason I think it's very important that we don't just stop there is because I do think that it's quite easy for us, as contemporary American Christians, who have heard often of the bad guys in the New Testament, those darn Pharisees, who had memorized the whole Old Testament, and it didn't do them a lick of good.

It just made them whitewash tombs full of dead man's bones.

And so there's a tendency, I think, that's not entirely bad, but a tendency to say, you know what really matters is just your heart.

As long as you have a heart that loves God, you don't need to do anything else.

Because I don't want to be a Pharisee.

I don't want to memorize the whole testament like those Pharisees and not count for anything.

But do you see here that you can fall off a horse in two ways?

You can fall off a horse in lots of ways, but at least two ways.

You can be like a Pharisee, and you can skip the heart and you just go straight to the memorizing the scripture and following the rules, and you can become a whitewash tomb, but you can also fall off the horse on the other side.

And you can say that I have the warm fuzzies, but then I don't actually do anything.

I don't discipline myself for the sake of godliness, as Paul commands us to do.

I don't memorize the Word of God, I don't store it up in a treasure in my heart.

I don't do Psalm 1.

I don't meditate on it day and night, I don't actually do anything.

I just have warm fuzzies.

And then at that point, you have fallen off the horse because those warm fuzzies, if they haven't turned into a committed action for God.

And the question is, is that is that really love for God?

Jesus says, if you love me, you'll keep my commandments.

What we have in Ezra 710 is we have a complete picture of what devotion to God looks like.

It starts in the heart with affection for God.

And because we love God, we want to know Him, and the way to know Him is to know His Word.

And so we have to move from setting our heart from resolving ourselves, just as you don't build a building on accident, so you don't become an Ezra on accident.

You resolve to set yourself, but then you have to follow up with the rest of what comes in this verse.

Set yourself to study the law of the Lord, to do it, and it teaches statutes and rules.

And you notice this word study, we have different English translations.

What an awesome blessing that is.

Different English translations render that word a little differently.

The word is a word that's usually translated for to seek.

That sounds a little word weird to seek, but the idea here is not just to study, but it's to like, just as you would chase something down if you were hunting an animal, you would.

I mean, when you're on a hunt, your whole person is devoted to the hunt.

Your eyes and your ears and your everything about you is entirely whole person devoted to tracking down and obtaining the object of the hunt.

That's the word that's used here is that Ezra is hunting down the law of the Lord.

He's seeking it, he's pursuing it.

His whole person is devoted to knowing the word of God.

He wants to know its contents and its meanings and its themes and its great riches.

He's plumbing the depths.

He's like Job in 28.

He's going down in the depths like a miner, he's pulling out the treasure.

He's devoted himself and he's actively pursuing and pillaging all that the word of God.

This is all over the scripture.

This is what flows out of a heart that loves God, is that we set ourselves to study, to seek it out, to know it.

Right?

I quoted Psalm 111 just a second ago.

Psalm 1 is the entrance into the Psalter.

The whole Psalter, the whole 150 Psalms are a picture of how you worship God.

What does a life of worship to God look like?

Well, it looks like the 150 Psalms.

But you walk into that life through Psalm 1.

It's like the opening gate.

And it starts with this Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked, nor stand in the way of sinners, nor sit in the seat of scoffers, but his delight, his heart, is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night.

And that word for meditate, hege, if you just say that, hege, hege, hege, hege, it's kind of onomonopoetic.

It sounds like you're just kind of muttering to yourself, and that's the idea.

To meditate is to have something stored up in your mind, and so you're saying it to yourself over and over again.

So you're reciting the scripture in your head over and over, and you're pondering it, and you're thinking about it, and you're praying it back to God.

So if someone walks by you while you're meditating, it sounds like you're just talking to yourself.

The blessed man in the Psalter begins his life by loving the law of the Lord and storing it up in his heart and seeking to understand it and apply it to his life.

The same kind of idea is present in Joshua chapter 1.

Joshua 1 · chapter mention

When Joshua comes in and is about to lead the people into the promised land, God comes in Joshua chapter 1 and tells him, This book of the law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, and be careful to do according to all that is written in it, for then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success.

Joshua 1 · chapter mention

The same idea.

Store up this word, put it in your heart, meditate on it, and do it, and then you'll have success.

Then you'll be prosperous.

You want prosperity in life?

Store the word of God in your heart and do it.

By the way, Psalm 1 also says, after saying that the person who meditates in the law of the Lord day and night, it says that he's like a tree planted firmly by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither, and all that he does, he prospers.

According to the Bible, you put God's word in your head, it gets down into your heart, flows into your hands and your actions, you will prosper.

The path to prosperity in the Bible is to love God's word and to do it.

Call ourselves Emmanuel Bible Church, but maybe a better marketing strategy and biblically truthful would be to call ourselves Manual Prosperity Church.

Just a thought I'm submitting to you, Steve.

He set his heart to seek the Word of God and to do it.

That's the next step.

He set his self set himself to study and to do.

Of course, that is what flows out of a heart that loves God, a mind that knows God and knows his desires.

Now he implements those desires in his life.

Is that legalism?

No, to be a doer of the word and not a hearer only, is that legalism?

No, it's it's the nature of love.

Jesus says, John 14, 15, if you love me, you will keep my commandments.

A heart that loves God, a head that knows God flows into a life that follows God, and finally, look at this.

And he set himself not just to do it, but to teach his statutes and rules in Israel.

And you know these themes run all the way through Scripture.

There's a sense in which it becomes easy for us to look at a scribe and to say, yes, of course, a scribe is his job, is to teach people.

And 200 years later, in the second century BCE, scribes in the line of Ezra become known as rabbis.

And so the Pharisees and the rabbis, Jesus is the greatest of all rabbis.

Rabbis are just scribes who know the Word of God.

They have followers who listen to their teaching and learn from these scribes.

But the teaching of the Word of God is not merely a function of a scribe or a rabbi.

According to the New Testament, the teaching of the Word of God is a Christian activity.

What is the Great Commission tell us to do?

Go into all the earth, make disciples of all the nations, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.

Teaching is just part and parcel of the Christian life.

We're always teaching.

We're teaching non-believers, we're teaching those who come into the church.

If you don't have God's word flowing out of you, then it's going to become like a radioactive chemical toxic to you.

But if that powerful element is linked up to a proper electrical outlet, then it becomes a powerful tool for discipleship, for evangelism, for life changes.

The word of God flows into you and flows out of someone.

That becomes like a nuclear power.

That's the intent of the Word of God is to flow into your heart and out into somebody else's.

What is the life of a person that God uses?

What does it look like?

It looks like someone who sets himself to study the word, to do it, and to teach it.

That's the paradigm that Ezra gives us.

This is the life of someone who God uses.

You know, if we could bring Ezra into the post-resurrection world that we live in, I think it this verse would read something like Ezra had set himself to study the gospel, to believe it, to live in step with it, and to make maturing disciples.

This is the person that God is using, not just in Ezra's time, but in our time.

That's Ezra, uh he's introduced to us as a Jew that God has raised up for a powerful work.

We've seen something of what's in his heart.

But Ezra lives in a complex world just as we do.

And Ezra's not just a Jewish scribe in an ivory tower studying the Bible in isolation.

Ezra is actively involved in the messy world that he lived in.

And so not only do we learn that he is a Jewish scribe, but we also learn that he's a commissioned Persian governmental official.

So let's secondly look at Ezra's Persian commission.

If you look down at verse 12 with me, notice let's begin actually, let's not skip verse 11.

Begin in verse 11.

Says this is a copy of the letter that King Artaxerxes gave to Ezra the priest, the scribe, a man learned in manners of the commandments of the Lord and his statutes for Israel.

Artaxerxes, King of Kings, to Ezra the priest, the scribe of the law and of the God of heaven, peace.

And now I made a decree that any one of the people of Israel or their priests or Levites in my kingdom who freely offers to go to Jerusalem may go with you.

For you are sent by the king and his seven counselors to make inquiries about Judah and Jerusalem according to the law of your God, which is in your hand, and also to carry the silver and gold that the king and his counselors have freely offered to the God of Israel, whose dwelling is in Jerusalem, with all the silver and gold that you shall find in the whole province of Babylonia, and with the free will offerings of the people, and the priests vowed willingly for the house of their God that is in Jerusalem.

With this money, then you shall, with all diligence, buy bulls, rams, and lambs, with their grain offerings and their drink offerings, and you shall offer them on the altar of the house of your God that is in Jerusalem.

Whatever seems good to you and your brothers to do with the rest of the silver and the gold you may do according to the will of your God.

The vessels that have been given to you for the service of the house of your God, you shall deliver before the God of Jerusalem.

And whatever else is required for the house of your God which falls to you to provide, you may provide it out of the king's treasury.

What in the world is going on?

Why is the king of Persia sending this Jewish scribe with a whole bunch of money from the Persian treasury to offer sacrifices in a Jewish temple?

As we read this letter, we're starting to get an insight into what in the world God is doing with Ezra.

Ezra is a scribe, a court official.

You notice that in verse 11.

Verse 11 says this is a copy of the letter that King Argoserxes gave to Ezra the priest, the scribe.

That's what a scribe is.

A scribe is, he's a particularly, he's a Jewish scribe in that he understands the law of the Lord and he teaches it to the Jewish community.

But here he's introduced as a Persian scribe, someone who is schooled in and trained in matters of bureaucracy pertaining to the Persian government.

And he is a government appointee, you could say, in the Persian uh in the Persian uh Empire.

I suppose that's probably the pre the best word.

So what we have going on here, even before we move on, let me just make a side note here.

Did you notice just two things?

One, Ezra is a godly man in a very ungodly government, in a very ungodly world.

And he is a public Yahweh worshiper in a very ungodly world.

And God prospered him.

God doesn't always give earthly prosperity to those who follow, but he always gives prosperity, but in his way and in his time.

In this instance, God gives earthly prosperity to someone who is a public Yahweh worshiper in a very ungodly society.

And secondly, Ezra, in spite of his earthly responsibilities, has made time to know God's word.

I don't know how he did, I don't know where he did it, but somehow, in the midst of his governmental requirements, in the midst of his, you could say, secular responsibilities, Ezra has Ezra has resolved himself to create the time and the opportunity to know God's word and to apply it in his life.

That's why I say that when we look at Ezra, you're looking at a paradigm of the kind of person that God uses.

Now, let's go to the rest of this letter that I just started to read, and you ask yourself, what in the world is God doing?

Why is God sending back why we could understand why God is sending back this Jewish scribe to the land of Israel, but why is a Persian king doing that?

Now, there's a number of things we could say here, but what I really want to do is I want to run you back just to a couple verses in the book of Deuteronomy.

So if you will, go to Deuteronomy chapter 6, because in order to kind of get our minds around why in the world Ezra is introduced in this way, what is Ezra doing, it will be helpful to recall some of the prophecies that are yet unfulfilled, and you might wonder if you're listening to the theme of the book of Ezra, is this the prophecy that God is going to fulfill?

Deuteronomy 6 · chapter mention

Now that this priest from the high priestly line is going back to the land of Israel, what exactly is the prophecy that God is going to fulfill through him?

So go to Deuteronomy chapter 6.

Deuteronomy 6 · chapter mention

And as I told you, that in the history of Judaism, Ezra has often been compared to Moses, and with good reason.

You saw that Ezra is a person who set himself to study the law of God, to teach it to others, and to do it.

Well, look at Deuteronomy chapter 6, this classic text in the Old Testament, where Moses is teaching the people of Israel before they go in to inherit the promised land.

Deuteronomy 6 · chapter mention

Look at how Moses instructs the people.

Look at verse 1.

Deuteronomy 6, verse 1.

Deuteronomy 6:1

Now, this is the commandment, the statutes, and the rules.

Those are all words that are used to describe Ezra and what he studied and knew.

This is the commandment that the Lord your God commanded me to teach you, that you may do them in the land of which you are going over to possess it.

Now drop down to verse 4.

Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind.

These are the words that I commanded you today.

They shall be on your heart.

You shall teach them diligently to your children.

You shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise, and you shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes, and you shall write them on the doorposts of your house and your gates.

That sounds a lot like Ezra.

I mean, the echoes of Moses' command are all through Ezra chapter 7.

Ezra 7 · chapter mention

It sounds a lot like Ezra is this person, almost like he's a new Moses, leading the people back into the promised land to accomplish what they couldn't accomplish the first time they crossed the Jordan.

And if you're thinking that, your your thinking along those lines might be enhanced if you read the end of the book of Deuteronomy.

Go to Deuteronomy in chapter 30.

Deuteronomy in chapter 30.

You remember just before this chapter in chapters 27 to 29, Moses had the people go to a mountain and he pronounced curses and blessings.

When you obey the covenant, then you'll be blessed.

When you disobey, you'll be cursed.

Chapter 29 tells them, you're going to disobey.

And you're going to be cursed.

Terrible things are going to happen.

2 Kings 25 and Jeremiah 52 tell us all the things that were promised in Deuteronomy 29 happened to Israel.

Their cities were burned.

Many were slaughtered.

They were taken into exile.

But even in Deuteronomy, Moses, foreseeing that this would happen, promised that after their exile, God would bring them back into the land and would bless them in a greater way than he ever had before.

Now look at chapter 30 of Deuteronomy.

Deuteronomy 30 and verse 1 says, And when all these things come upon you, the blessing and the curse which I have set before you, and you call them to mine among all the nations where the Lord your God has driven you, and return to the Lord your God, you and your children, and obey his voice and all that I command you today with all your heart and with all your soul, then the Lord your God will restore your fortunes and have mercy on you, and he will gather you from all the peoples where you were scattered, and if your outcasts are in the uttermost part of heaven, from there the Lord your God will gather you, and from there he will take you, and he will bring you into the land that your fathers possessed, that you may possess it, and he will make you more prosperous and numerous than your fathers.

Now, if Ezra is like a new Moses, devoting himself to know God's word, to do it and to teach it, and he's bringing a group of Jews back into Israel, and he's from the high priestly line, doesn't it sound like Deuteronomy 30 is gonna happen?

This is it, right?

This is the return from exile that Moses promised.

That ought to be on your mind.

But then you read verse 6.

And the Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your offspring so that you will love the Lord.

That's not a singular you, that's all of you will love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul that you may live.

Now, does that happen when Ezra brings the people back to the land of Israel?

And the very first thing that Ezra confronts when he returns to Israel in chapters 9 and 10 is that they're intermarrying and they're worshiping foreign gods.

In fact, they're doing the very first thing that Moses told them not to do in Deuteronomy 7.

Moses says, I'm gonna teach you to obey all these commands.

Here's command number one: don't marry pagans and worship their gods.

Ezra has set himself to know God's word and to do it and to teach it, and he takes people back to Israel, and what does he find?

The first thing they do is they marry pagans and worship their gods.

What a letdown.

What a terrible letdown.

And the reason that I drag you all the way through Deuteronomy to show you this is that if you're listening to the theme that underrides the whole book of Ezra, that God is fulfilling his covenant promises through these people, he's raising up in history.

You ought to be attentive to these things and ask, is God finally doing it?

Is he finally going to fulfill all these covenant promises?

And when you see that he's not, then there ought to be a drop in our hearts like, when is he going to do it?

Well, he's not going to do it through Ezra, but if we can go back to Ezra now, but God is going to do something very important, very pivotal, crucial, through Ezra.

And if it's not fulfilling Deuteronomy 30, what is it?

What promise is he fulfilling through the scribe Ezra?

Well, we've just read this letter that Arta Xerxes is sending him back, and he's sending him back with a whole bunch of money to go to the temple, to buy animals, to do sacrifices.

And he authorizes him with Persian authority to do whatever else he needs in order to outfit the temple for whatever sees he sees fit to ensure proper Torah worship in the land of Israel.

Interesting.

Let's keep reading.

Verse 21.

There's a second thing that Artaxerxes gives Ezra authority to do.

In verse 21, I, Artaxerxes the king, make a decree in all the treasures of the province beyond the river, whatever Ezra the priest requires of you, let it be done with all diligence, up to a hundred talents of silver.

That's a lot of silver.

A hundred cores of wheat, a hundred baths of wine, a hundred baths of oil and salt, without prescribing how much, without limit, however much he needs.

Whatever is decreed by the God of heaven, let it be done in full for the house of the God of heaven, lest his wrath be against the realm of the kings and his sons.

We also notify you that it shall not be lawful to impose tribute, custom, or toll on any one of the priests, the Levites, the singers, the doorkeepers, the temple servants, or other servants of the house of this God.

What's happening here is that the Persian king is authorizing Ezra to withdraw from all of the empire's depositories in all of the surrounding provinces for whatever is needed, whatever Ezra the scribe deems is needed for proper Torah worship in the Israelite temple.

And Arta Xerxes forbids any of the provincial governors from taxing the clergy.

This is pretty crazy.

What's happening is that the Persian government is enforcing the success of temple worship in Israel.

Is enforcing and solidifying and giving the financial resources and the governmental backing to secure the prolonged prosperity of temple worship in Israel.

Now let's do one more step before we, I think, we'll be able to put together what prophecy God's fulfilling through Ezra.

If you look at verse 25, the final thing that the king authorizes Ezra to do, verse 25, and you, Ezra, according to the wisdom of your God that is in your hand, appoint magistrates and judges who may judge all the people in the province beyond the river.

All such as you know, the laws of your God, and those who do not know them you shall teach.

Whoever will not obey the law of your God and the law of the king, let judgment be strictly executed on him, whether for death or for banishment, or for confiscation of his goods, or for imprisonment.

Look, verse 26.

Whoever won't obey the law of your God.

Look, what's happening is that the king of Persia is giving Ezra authorization to establish the Torah as the law of Israel.

No longer will they be under the administration of the Samaritans or any other provincial governors.

Now the Jews are given some autonomy to run the land of Israel according to the Torahs.

The Torah is going to be the law of the land, and the temple is going to have all the financial resources that it needs in order to function.

By the way, before I think we can finally tie in to an important prophecy that this fulfills, we might just ask, why is the Persian king doing this?

And we can't say for certain, but I think it's pretty clear that it was a pragmatic concern.

We know from extra-biblical historical texts that two years prior to this account, uh, Egypt successfully rebelled against Artaxerxes' authority, and as Ezra was being sent back to to execute all of these new policies in Israel, the Persian military was trying to subdue a rebellion in Egypt.

The last thing that the Persian governor wants is for sedition to spread to Israel.

What pragmatically seems best in his mind is to allow Israel to worship their way, to have all of the supplies that they need to worship their way to ensure social stability.

That's what's going to be most profitable for the Persian Empire at this time.

We know that Artaxerxes doesn't have any particular love for Yahweh because we already read in Ezra chapter 4 that he shut down some of Nehemiah's wall building projects a few years later.

Ezra 4 · chapter mention

So it's not that he's converting to Yahweh worship, but pragmatically he sees an opportunity to secure some stability in his empire by letting Ezra go back and establish the Torah as the rule of the land.

We might notice that Ezra's pretty shrewd here.

He sees what's happening in the political world and he sees an opportunity to go before the king and to ask him, can I go back and establish Torah as the law of the land?

Ezra's a shrewd person who, because he has studied the law of God, which probably includes the wisdom books, which teach us how to live in God's world in God's way, he doesn't just have theoretical knowledge about God, but he has a knowledge about God that becomes practical and he knows how to live in the real world.

Now, what does all of this have to do with God fulfilling his plans in history?

Why are these random Aramaic letters from Persian kings in the Bible?

Finally, have I dragged this on long enough?

We read at the beginning of our prayer time, our scripture reading time, we read Daniel chapter 9.

Daniel 9 · chapter mention

Daniel chapter 9 concludes with a prophecy that says there is going to be a person just after the time of Daniel who will be sent out to rebuild Jerusalem.

Daniel 9 · chapter mention

And when he goes out, it's going to start a time clock.

And 483 years later, there will be a temple where a Messiah will be cut off, and that temple will be destroyed.

Jesse preached Daniel chapter 7 last year, and it's pretty clear that Nehemiah chapter 2, which happens just 12 or 13 years after the writing of Ezra chapter 7, is the commencement of that time clock.

Daniel 7 · chapter mention Nehemiah 2 · chapter mention Ezra 7 · chapter mention

So Ezra and Nehemiah are the people who are sent to build Jerusalem, to build the temple, and 483 years later, that temple that Ezra and Nehemiah secure is going to be the temple where the Messiah comes, where the Messiah is crucified, where God's salvation is achieved, and then is sent out to the ends of the earth.

In other words, the book of Daniel gives us this prophecy that God is going to rebuild the temple at a time when the temple was lying in ruins, and Daniel thought there's no possible pragmatic way that I can envision someone being sent back to rebuild the temple.

God says, No, I will rebuild the temple.

And when it is rebuilt, I'll secure it.

I'll make sure that it's functioning.

I'll make sure it's functioning for centuries.

That's longer.

Than the first temple stood.

I'm going to secure it and procure all of the means necessary to make sure it's functioning for centuries until the Messiah comes.

And as soon as the Messiah comes, then that temple will be destroyed.

And this Ezra is the person that God uses in this period when there's chaos going on in the Persian Empire, and the Persian king is looking around wondering, how can I begin to stabilize some of these provinces?

And Ezra says, Oh, I know.

I'll go and I'll secure this temple and I'll enshrine Torah worship as the law of the land, and that will be profitable for you, and it'll start the time clock for this messianic prophecy where God's going to send a Savior into the world to accomplish redemption for all of his people.

What's happening here, the reason that this is in the Bible is to get us to see the meticulous providence of God, that he is tying together every tiny little detail of worldwide empires in order to achieve his purposes.

And you might ask, does Ezra know that this is happening?

Does Ezra realize that he's being sent back at just the right time in the providence of God to secure temple worship that will last until the Messiah comes, exactly as God had predicted through his prophet Daniel?

He doesn't say anything about it, so maybe he doesn't even realize what God is doing.

And I think that's an even more amazing thing for us is to recognize that Ezra didn't know the bigger purposes that God was working through his life.

All Ezra knew was that he loved God, he wanted to know his word, and he wanted to do it, and God took care of the rest and made sure that Ezra played a pivotal role in the history of the world.

Ezra is the man who secured the s secured the temple where God would send his Messiah to secure salvation for the world.

All because he decided to know the word and to do it.

And you get finally, you see just that in Ezra's heart.

The final thing we see about Ezra is an insight into his own heart in verse 27, where he says, Blessed be the Lord, the God of our fathers, who put such a thing as this into the heart of the king, to beautify the house of the Lord that is in Jerusalem, and who extended to me his steadfast love before the king and his counselors, and before all the king's mighty officers.

I took courage, for the hand of the Lord my God was on me, and I gathered leading men from Israel to go up with me.

This is the heart of the person who God is using to build the platform onto which God will send his only begotten Son to achieve the foundation that the Father and the Son had covenanted together before the world began.

The man who in his heart delights in the Lord.

By the way, I've said numerous times to this text that there are connections between Ezra and Moses.

Those connections really aren't in this text.

When Ezra is speaking in the first person and telling us what's in his heart, you know the strongest connection to another figure in the Bible?

It's not Moses.

It's in this little phrase that he extended his steadfast love to me.

The only time that phrase occurs is when Joseph says that God extended steadfast love to him when he was in prison in Egypt.

That's the way that Ezra sees himself.

He sees himself not as some mighty figure triumphing around in God's world.

He sees himself as a humble beggar, reliant on the mercy of the Lord.

And he takes courage in the knowledge that his God is merciful to him, so he acts.

And God takes care of the rest.

This is the person that God delights to use, someone who delights in him, knows his word, and courageously does it.

John Rutin wrote, Fading is the world's best pleasure.

All its boasted pomp and show, solid joys and lasting treasure, none but Zion's members know.

Ezra is that kind of a person.

Maybe we be too.

Father, we thank you for revealing to us the way you work through history beyond anything we could think or imagine, and we pray that you would make us people who delight in your word.

People who want to do your word, people who set ourselves not to build cities and empires, but who set ourselves to know you and to do your word and to teach it to others.

Father, we pray even this week that you would give us opportunities to know your word in a deeper way and to share it with others.

Open up doors for us to preach the gospel to our friends and to our family.

Open up doors for us to pour into the lives of those in this church.

And we ask that we would be a people who are known for our love for you and our devotion to your word.

In Jesus' name we pray these things.

Amen.

Thank you for being with us today.

And now a parting word from Pastor Jesse.

If you have any questions about what you heard today, or if you want to learn more about what it means to follow Christ, please visit our church website, emmanuel Bible.church.

If you're not a member of a local church and you live in the Washington, D.C.

area, we'd love to have you worship with us here at Emmanuel.

I hope to personally meet you this Sunday after our service.

But no matter where you live, it's our hope that everyone who uses this resource is involved in their own local church.

Now may God bless you this week as you seek Jesus constantly, serve the Lord faithfully, and share the gospel boldly.