A Story of Restoration | God’s Faithfulness in Ezra | Ezra 1:1-11

You're listening to the Bible Guys, a podcast where a

couple of friends talk about the Bible in fun in

practical ways.

Well, good morning, good morning. We talked all night through

good morning, good morning to you and you and you.

So today we're kicking off a Brandon Thank you Chris

by the way, I forgot this. This makes my day.

You almost didn't acknowledge them.

Oh well I was. I was, thank you. I was

so excited, right, so excited. Our people are so excited.

But today we're kicking off a brand new book, the

Book of Ezra. Yes, and there's a little twist to

the Book of Ezra, and that is that a pagan

king does exactly what God says he's gonna do.

Yes, which means God's gonna use people regardless.

Yeah, so it's gonna be cool. We're gonna have fun

with this one. And uh there's we're gonna kind of

twist and turn through several different books during this next yeah,

couple days. Yeah, it's gonna be fun.

Wait to get it started.

Just for fun, Desiree has put together a segment that

I always feel pressure on. Uh, it's a movie buff quiz.

Let's see if Chris can guess the movie based on

three word clues.

Oh yeah, so this is a good one right here.

Yeah, And I always get nervous, not that I care

about movies.

I think you're going to get these.

Yeah, you're gonna be like Bible trivia.

I'd beat more nervous. It's it's it's the thing you

spend the most time on, and so you don't want

to sail it.

Stuff. Hey, by the way, I do the same thing.

Did I ever tell you the story of I get

a good friend named Mike, and he knows every stat

of every football card, every rookie football card, and he's like,

he's like, nim player, name a player, and I name

it and he tells me all the stats on the

rookie card and I go, dude, I go.

Study a Bible verse. What's wrong with you?

Right?

It's what you're saying now.

It's funny how how different things stick in your head.

Yes, it is right.

You can put in way more hour. You spend way

more hours per week engaging in ministry and serving people writing.

But something everything stick in your head, especially hobby kind

of things, for whatever reason. You just have a knack

for the reason why they become your hobbies. Is because

you discover you have a knack for things. Yes, right,

and that's what happens. So anyways, no judgment. It just tickles.

It just tickles me. That's okay. Here we go three

words and you have to choose. The pressure's on, and

I don't see any commonality between these five.

Okay, so just random movies.

Ready, here we go, women, women.

Car, women in car. Holy could be anything.

Cliff Louis. There you go. So it took all three

to get you there?

Okay, Time time okay, loop time, loop looper?

Uh, back to the future.

Day day, oh, ground on day, yes, Monday, over and over.

It can also be that modern take on it with

a what's his name? Oh, come on, what's his name?

He played in Wedding Crushers. I don't know, Vince Vaughan

he was. He was in like a serial killer. It

was the same Groundhog Day kind of thing. I forget

the name of it, but that was it was a

crazy movie.

Here we go, ready, yep, physician, physician, animals.

Animals talk? Oh uh, Dady Murphy.

Doctor do that? Yes, our fans were screaming that when

you know that? Right?

I took on Chris, I took too long.

Here we go.

But you know what, I didn't love that movie, but

it was cute, you know. So it's hard to remember

the names if you.

Don't love him.

Okay, ready, Austria, Austria.

That's that's arm Swortslinger Nunnery. Oh come on, sound of music.

There you go, thank governess. Yep. When Bonnie and I

were in Austria last year, we went to several of

the the places where they shot.

Oh really, yeah, I get I said.

I can't believe, I said, Arnold Schwartzsaker because in all

his movies he's not from Ostria.

Right right, right right, he is from Austria. Yep. Yeah,

here we go. Ready.

Sharks, Oh, sharks, shark shark tail, jets, jets, dancing, dancing.

Oh yeah, people screaming this it's in dancing.

Dude, This is in your wheelhouse on so many levels,

so many levels. I have no. I don't want to

waste all the kinds of theaters you go to.

So it's a it's a musical.

Uh, sharks and jets and dancing.

I don't know, I don't I don't know this story.

I've never seen it. What I've never seen it.

What I know you've seen, Harris Brain. You've never seen

West Side Story. No, oh my goodness, I've never seen it.

I think I think we take I think we should

take a theater card away from you. Now.

I do know that it was made in the sixties

and then Steven Spielberg just remade it, like with the

with the snow white chick. What's your name? I don't know,

Rachel Rachel. I can't believe I said chick. Sorry, you're

gonna get I know, I know.

But you know what I mean. I know, I know,

I know.

But the snow white girl, Rachel whatever her name is,

she just did the remake Steven Spielberg in like four

or five years.

So the Sharks and the Jets are the two different

gangs that are facing against each other in West Side Story,

and they have you. They have a dance off.

If you had said the Greasers and the Soshas got outsiders.

So I knew this one.

Yeah, I've never seen what said.

Story sophisticated to be honest with yousication, So I know, Bernstein,

I don't know. You know the reason why I never

saw it, because because you're uncultured, people have told.

Me it's terrible.

Oh okay, is it bad? Well it's only one of

the most famous Broadway shows ever, but yeah, but did

you like it? It's interesting. I'm not into big dance offs,

but it's huh, it's good musically, okay, all right? Yeah,

so all right, Well there you go, Chris. You were

four for five yes, and you lingered on three. So

number three, yeah, and number three one of them on

one of them number three? Yes, yes, people, I people were.

Screaming apologize for not knowing West Side Story.

I feel guilty. I'm gonna go home and watch it.

There's no doubt. Okay, and sorry I said the word check.

Yeah. I don't know that you're gonna love it, but.

Well yeah I was. That's why I avoided it, because

I was told it wasn't you might like it.

I think probably live would be better than the movie.

Yeah, it's gonna feel like a burden. I'm gonna I'm

gonna I'm gonna burden myself.

I don't want to spend two hundred bucks to go

watch it live.

Oh, I could probably get on a streaming service.

Yeah, that's what I'm saying. It's going to be better

live than on a screen.

Is it still in Broadway?

It's all time, it's being done?

No way, Sure, No, it's not sure.

I'm sure it is somewhere. I bet there's a touring

version of West Side Story somewhere.

That is hard to believe.

I'll bet you.

Yeah.

Okay, So here's what we have. We have. Do you

remember the King Cyrus?

I do. He's the one that came after Darius.

And Daniel served him. Yes, right, so this is amazing.

This is maybe one of the most amazing things. Uh.

Well, we didn't do a transition.

We don't want to talk about it. We didn't do

a Terrible Trains terrible transition. Do you have one?

Yes?

So I almost got everything right on that game, and

you know who almost get everything right as well?

Daniel. We're not even talking about we're not talking about

Daniel Ezra.

Yeah. Oh, by the way, we should clear something up.

I think yesterday we said.

Oh, yeah, that Daniel only had nine chapters. Yeah, but

what I should have said was.

Nine chapters is where we're gonna stop reading. That's where

we were because it was actually twelve chapters in Daniel.

So, but we were not going to read the other

three chapters.

So just had to make sure to clarify that for

all of our Bible scholars, yes, who were at home saying.

Here, so we were done. We were done with Daniel yesterday.

There's a few more chapters. They're prophetic, they're very interesting.

We're not saying it's not important, it's just not in

the scope of what this.

Yeah, because we're doing we're doing highlights. We're not going

verse by verse.

Right, So if you during this same time then five thirties,

you've got a couple of other key people in the Bible,

and then you get into like the four seventy five

somewhere in there. So what you have is you have

Ezra is during this time, Nehemiah is during this time,

Esther is during this time. There's some really amazing stories

that are happening among the exiled people of Israel, God's people. Right,

And so we'll read, we'll flip back and forth. There's

a couple of the prophets that are talking during this time.

And chronologically it also coincides with second chronicles.

Yes, so here's what it says. Ezra Chapter one says,

in the first year of King Cyrus of Persia, the

Lord fulfilled the prophecy he had given through Jeremiah. He

stirred the heart of Cyrus to put this proclamation in

writing and send it throughout his kingdom. Remember Daniel had

been reading Jeremiah and remember that God it says seventy years.

Yes, and you know you're reading Seton Chronicles right now right?

Nope, I'm reading Ezra chapter one, verse eleven right next

to it. See it.

Wait? Wait, did you know that these are the same words?

Isn't that great?

In certain chronicles?

Yeah?

So you read the first verse and it's word for

word the same exact wording in Seton Chronicles thirty six,

verse twenty two.

They didn't have copyright loss back then.

No, I know, but that was That's crazy. I didn't

know that that was the case. That's really cool.

So here's the proclamation. Cyrus writes. This is what King

Cyrus of Persia says. The Lord, the God of Heaven

has given me all all the kingdoms of earth. He

has appointed me to build him a temple at Jerusalem,

which is in Judah. Any of you who are his people,

may go to Jerusalem and Judah to rebuild this temple

of the Lord, the God of Israel who lives in Jerusalem,

And may your God be with you wherever this Jewish

remnant is found. Let their neighbors contribute toward their expenses

by giving them silver and gold, supplies for the journey

and livestock, as well as a voluntary offering for the

Temple of God in Jerusalem. Then God stirred the hearts

of the priests and Levites and the leaders of the

tribes of Judah and Benjamin to go to Jerusalem to

rebuild the temple of the Lord. And all their neighbors

assisted by giving them articles of silver and gold, and

supplies for the journey in livestock. They give them many

valuable gifts in addition to all the voluntary offerings. King

Cyrus himself brought out the articles that King Nebukenezer had

taken from the Lord's Temple in Jerusalem and had placed

them in the temple of his own gods. Cyrus directed

Mithridath sure okay Job, the treasurer of Persia, to count

these items to present them to Shesh Bazaar, the leader

of the exiles returning to Judah. And this is a

list of the items that returned. Gold basins, thirty silver basins,

a thousand silver incense burners, twenty nine gold bowls, thirty

silver bowls, four hundred and ten other items A thousand

and all, there were fifty four hundred articles of gold

and silver, and Sheesh Bazaar brought all of these along

with the exiles when the exiles went from Babylon back

to Jerusalem. And then it gives long lists of all

the people who went, Yes, Drusalem. I don't know that

we need to read no.

Three hundred names for certain we do not, yes, but

I mean, let's just say.

I can't tell you. The total was forty two, three

hundred and sixty people returned to Judah, in addition to

seven three hundred and thirty seven servants and two hundred singers. Wow,

And they took seven hundred and thirty six horses, two

hundred and forty five mules, four hundred and thirty five camels,

and six thousand, seven hundred And.

You know, remember we talked about the Bible exact, Yeah,

right with numbers, and so.

Seven hundred and thirty six horses, not seven hundred thirty horses, right,

seven hundred and thirty six horses.

And isn't these are the kind of numbers that that

just amazed me. The fact that it is so.

Hard like meticulous. Yeah, like why would we ever need

to know that? But it is. It is an exact

count in history.

It just keeps us rooted in the fact that this

is actual history, right right, the precision of it as

opposed to the generality of you know, how you and

I would just say, and you know, a bunch of

people went right, roughly forty thousand people went right, God said,

Actually it was forty two, three hundred and sixty along.

With and by the way, not only does it five

hundred and thirty seven more, not only.

Does it list all those people, but it tells you

exactly how many people from each tribe and city in area, right,

like the people of Bethlam. There's one hundred and twenty

three from Bethlehem.

Right, they went back, They went back. So this is

this This is a really profound thing in that uh,

one of my you know, I love archaeology. I love

this stuff so much, and it's one of the reason

why I love going to the Middle East. It's not

always pretty, but there's so many amazing things. To walk

the Roman streets or to walk the Egyptian streets to

be you know, I'll be there again here soon. And

here's what it is. There's a note you got to

get yourself a life application study Bible. They've got a

picture of this clay cylinder. Yes, that was found and

it's called the Cyrus cylinder, and it was found in

an excavation in Babylon and it's nine inches long and

it's a baked clay barrel inscribed in qneiform. You know

that was their hand their writing. They would use these

little sticks and they would make lines with it, different shapes.

And it says the inscription was written by Cyrus the

Great as an effort to describe and justify his policies.

The largely intact tech is about one thousand words in

translation and dates to about five hundred and thirty six PC.

Guess when this happened, ding ding ding r. Five thirty

six PC roughly five thirty eight BC. And it says

one section of the inscription relates to the Jews and

is a significant part of biblical history. Cyrus decided to

reverse the deportation policy of the Babylonians in the Assyrians

before him, and he permitted all the captive peoples who

had been uprooted to return to their ancestral homes. He

also returned the images of their gods to their former

sanctuaries and helped the various groups to rebuild their temples

of their gods. Thus, it is clear that Cyrus's decree

permitting the Jews to return to Palestine was part of

this new policy. This piece of archaeology is a remarkable

confirmation and illumination of scription.

And isn't that the best?

Isn'tsble?

It's incredible because here we have again recorded an incredible

detail exactly what had happened. And then we find in

our it doesn't say in our lifetime, but assuming.

The last hundred and fiftyears, the.

Last hundred and fifty years, they went ahead and found

a thousand words that literally describe what was written.

Ready for this three thousand years ago?

Right? Right? So?

Or almost three twenty five hundred years a hundre years ago. Yah, so,

twenty five hundred years ago. This was written and has

been around to get this, It's been around and it's

been known. So one hundred and fifty years ago, you

and I we have we have knowledge that there's a

cylinder backing this up. But before one hundred and fifty

years ago, for thousands of years, people were taking God's word,

you know, to be true. Right, And all of a sudden,

imagine that, right, So somebody just stumbles across the cylinder,

they read it and they go, oh, my goodness, this

is a part of history written by the king that

backs up everything that we read in God's word.

Isn't that cool?

It's fabulous, It's it's awesome. So these things. Now, what

Cyrus is deciding to do is allow the people to

go back. And you know, when you read his letter,

he says, the Lord God of Heaven has given me

all the kingdoms. He's the point you're thinking, ooh, did

Cyrus become a Christian? But he also did it for

all the other peoples and all their gods too. Right.

What he was doing was he was currying favor, and

instead of having them all always only being away from home,

he's sending them back home. His goal is I need

you guys go home and be prosperous, so I keep

collecting taxes. That's that's what he's doing, right. But he

says nice words and they're happy about it. They get

to go home, and then he gives them back all

the stuff that Nebukanezer stole. So remember when Belshazzar or

Belta Shazzar, no Belshazzar was drinking out of the cups

from the temple all that, Yes, remember that. Yeah. So

Syrus gives it all back. Yes, God was done with him.

Yeah.

And so God God makes sure that Cyrus gives it

all back. And then they begin heading back towards Jerusalem.

All the people are very excited about it. So this said,

there's another note. It says the Book of Azer opens

in five thirty eight BC. We know that this writing

that was found was five thirty six PCs, so it

was written two years after the beginning of the Book

of Ezra, which is great, that's pretty amazing. And forty

eight years after Nebucken Azer destroyed Jerusalem and defeated the

Southern Kingdom and carried the Jews away to Babylon as captives.

Kenezer died in five point sixty two, and because the

successors were not strong, Babylon was overthrown by Persia in

five point thirty nine. Just prior to the events recorded

in this book. Both the Babylonians and the Persians had

a relaxed policy toward their captives, allowing them to own

land and homes and to take ordinary jobs. Many Jews,

such as Daniel and Mordecai and Esther who will read

about soon rose to prominent positions within the nation, and

King Cyrus of Persia went a step further. He allowed

many groups of exiles, including the Jews, to return to

their homelands, and by doing this, he hoped to win

their loyalty and thus provide buffer zones around the borders

of his empire. For the Jews, this was a day

of hope and beginning. This was at the end of

that seventy year window that Jeremiah said, and you're going

to be under judgment for seventy years. But then God says,

I'm not going to forget you. I'm going to give

grace to you, get give mercy back to you, and

you're going to be able to go home. And so

that's what happens.

Do you think that maybe Cyrus also had a you know,

like another administration comes in and they sort of undo

what the previous administration had done because they don't necessarily

agree with it, and so and so, yeah, I mean,

I think what you said is probably true. Hey, go home,

pay taxes, so I could be prosperous.

He's creating a buffer zone around the center part of

his because they're all allies now, yes, oh good, let

us go.

But there's also probably another part of him that recognizes

the cry of the people, the injustices that have been done.

You know, he's probably thinking, hey, this great empire has

been built off of a lot of pain in history,

and now that we're so large and we're so prosperous,

let me, let me let me right some wrongs that

have been done. Because it's one thing to say go back,

it's another thing to say and take all the stolen

things that we've took from your grandfathers or your or

your father's right and and you know, the previous administration

had had done this, and this would be probably what

their grandfather's time, right, this would be like the third generation.

Yeah, seventy years, Yeah, seventy years.

So so yeah, there's still stories, there's there's still you know,

there's a rich history of you know, people who are

from that area who you know probably still talk about

you know, going back, you know and being a part

of it, our land, our our home that we were

taken from and robbed and everything else.

So he's sort of writing.

Wrong, and then he's giving them a lot of gold.

And by the way, there's a lot more gold that

we're about to read that that's going to come up

in the temple specifically. But still, I just think that

there's a part of me that thinks that maybe he's

doing it for favor and goodwill as well.

One hundred percent I believe that, Yeah, totally, there's a

It's kind of interesting as we're going through the the

chronological order, there's a couple of psalms that are in

the Jewish song book that are probably written during this time.

You have someone twenty six, someone forty seven, and it's

all about God does great things. He doesn't only release

us from sims, sins, captive, captivity, but he also brings

us back to him and there's so that's what someone

twenty six and then one seven it's asking, you know what,

what gives God joy? And then even though he created everything,

his greatest joy comes from our genuine worship and trust,

and those both seem to have been written by the

people going back to Jerusalem. Yeah, right, so the joy

you can imagine seventy years of relative oppression. Now, of

all the kingdoms, Babylon was pretty good to their captives, right.

You could own land, you could you know, run your businesses,

you could keep your religion mostly except for thirty days

when Daniel was allowed to pray, but for the most part.

And bowing down to ye ninety feet gold statues.

In that moment, what they wanted was insert theirs, but

you could keep yours, right, That's kind of how it went.

And so it was even then even in the judgment,

the judgment was that they weren't at their home anymore.

They were they were, you know, pilgrims in a new land, right,

and they wanted to go home. That's what they want.

They want to go back to their home.

The story of the Jews to.

Their temple, right, And so they're they're in this situation.

And then God says, okay, I keep my promises. I

said it was only gonna be seventy years. You can go.

Daniel starts realizing that that's why he was reading that

in Uh Daniel nine. And then Ezra is one of

the guys. So what we'll see in the Book of

Ezra and Nehemiah is there's there's a guy named the

Rubba Bull that's going to come up. He's going to

lead the first group, Ezra is going to lead the

second group to Jerusalem, and then finally Nehemyah. And so

it's it's kind of a cool thing to see how

it doesn't just all of a suddenly happen all at once.

There's a bunch of new learning, there's a bunch of

work to be done, all these things, but the people

are kind of rejoicing that. Hey, you know, God's heavy

hand doesn't last forever. So even if you feel like

you're in a difficult time today, Uh, those those chapters

six and seven might be for you that you know,

they're celebrating God is good even though we've had a

tough time up to this point. God's good and he

finds joy in restoring his people and giving them back.

Yeah, which which which is a fact, well, which is

a great indicator. Like sometimes we think about Daniel's prayer.

Daniels said, hey, we deserve what we got, and then

all of a sudden, you know, there's a there's a

restoration that's happening, and uh, and God delights in it,

right and so God wants to So.

What does that mean.

It means even when we mess up, you know, even

even back in the Old Testament, before Jesus and before

God's you know, graced through the blood of Christ. You know,

God still is the same, yesterday, today, and forever, which

means that God wants to receive his people back. He

wants to forgive, and he's delighted to when when God's

people return back to him. Right, his patience was shown

over and over, He's demonstrated his patients. And yes he

has judgment, and there are consequences to our rebellion. But

yet God's nature is all he really wants for us,

is what's best.

And then even when it seems impossible, God uses the

least likely people to bring about his solutions. And I

mean Cyrus wasn't a follower of God, but right, and

he was the captor of the people, and he went,

why don't you guys go home? Right right? Oh, and

here's all your stuff right right. It's pretty amazing.

Yeah, that's really cool. Well, hey, that is our time,

so hopefully we will see you tomorrow. As we pick

up the story on the Bible, Gos