Ezra
ch. 1
Surprise! I still plan to teach the rest of Hebrews
but I want to deviate
today and teach the first part
of the scheduled book
of Ezra.
Joe Allen came over
with a big ladder and helped me
on Tuesday to plug up
a hole at the apex of the gable
end of my house where
squirrels have gnawed a hole and
have become all too
familiar to my attic!
I had a real good day - I had worked all day
cleaning
gutters and re-raking
much of the yard - Polly had
FAITH team visitation
so I came in with her and went
up to the third floor
in the
start my study on
Ezra.
I was feeling very
sore and like I was coming down with
something but the
study was so interesting and timely
and the combination
was a pleasant uncomfortable
feeling.
When I was a kid we
had a black neighbor by the
name of Dewey Stigall
who told my Dad that he
bet that Dad had
"climbed to the moon by now" as
many times as he had
ascended the silo to feed silage
to the dairy cows.
Although my four or
five times up the ladder doesn't
qualify for "the
moon" - yet it felt like it.
I really enjoyed that
study - at the time it seemed so
to dove-tail with
what I recently have tried to get
across in Hebrews
about Christ, our Great High
Priest, His work and
the dangers of apostasy from
the faith once
delivered unto the saints.
To me, this is a very
important lesson (as all God's
Word, no doubt is)
and very timely.
vs. 1-3
The background of
this is God's attempt to plant
in Canaan, the
do His will and that
the Messiah could come through
them.
They failed in doing
His will - their nation broke up
and went into
captivity for seventy years as the Lord
had said.
II Chron. 36:12-17a,
21 Jer. 26:5-7
The importance of the
lesson for our times is that
God has raised up His
church to do His will in the
church age and that
the Messiah will return someday
to take us to be with
Him for ever in the air.
We should beware, as
Christians that we fail not as
the Jews did - these
things have been written for
our admonition upon
whom the ends of the world
are come! I Cor. 10:11
During this time, the
Persian people recognized a
single Supreme Deity
- this throws light on the
whole history of the
Jews under the Persians -
the friendly decrees
of Darius, Artaxerxes,
and Esther and
Mordecai under Ahasuerus - but this
must not be carried
too far as the Persians believed
in other gods as
well.
v. 1 - the first year
of Cyrus - corresponds to
Daniel 5:30 when Belshazzar was
overthrown.
Darius' role - general
- father-in-law of Cyrus?? -
ruled in
Jer. 25:11-12,
29:10-13
Daniel seems to have
calculated the time - he had
spent his whole time
in captivity - Dan. 9:2-19
v. 2 - "which is
in
into which the ruined city had
fallen - the
clause is repeated in the next
verse.
v. 3 - "his God
be with him" - indicative of the deep
religious feeling and goodness of
heart
Of Cyrus:
* The Greek,
AEschylus calls him kindly or gracious.
* Herodotus (Greek
historian) says he ruled his subjects
like a father
* Xenophon (Greek
historian) makes him a modern prince
* Plutarch (Greek
biographer & moralist) observes that "in
wisdom, virtue & greatness of soul he
excelled all other
kings
* Diodorus ascribes
to him a remarkable power
of self-command, together with good feeling
and
gentleness.
* Cicero - the Latin
writer - says no nobler character
appears in
history
* The Bible seems to
back them up
"he that is
least in the
he" - speaking
of John the Baptist
What shall it be said
of you or me?
vs. 5-6 - the Crux of
the Matter
Our behavior today is
not without precedent!
vs. 7-11 -
Sacred vessels which
were used in the temples service/
put up in
desecrated them at
his banquet
ch. 2
Spiritual Pedigree
A careful record
should be kept of the families
by which the state of
Already, a large
number of the Jews among the
captives, who could
not show their father's house,
whether they were of
The kind of men that
came back from the captivity.
They appear to have
been men, in the main, loving
the old state of
things - conservative, if you will - in
politics keeping in
the person of Zerubbabel their chief
ruler, to the ancient
dynasty of David. (It was through the
seed of David that
God had promised the Messiah)
In church matters,
the returning exiles showed their
strong respect for
precedents and the past by submitting
to Jeshua as the
chief priest -
Haggai 1:1,14 -
"came the word of the Lord" - "the
Lord stirred up the spirit of
Zerubbabel...
and the spirit of Joshua...the high
priest"
Another example of
their conservatism was the special
importance put on the
question of genealogy. A strong
clannish spirit and a
great desire to be and do as in
"the old times
before them"
Jer. 6:16, 18:15
They were returning
refugees, not colonists, men
called upon to merely
rebuild and restore, and
not to DEVISE and
CREATE!
Among the first
signals of division, devision if
there is such a word,
was Polly telling me of
an lady, who no
longer goes to this church, saying
"this music
doesn't touch me" - apparently in
the contemporary
movement, it is really about
me after all!
The number of those
who returned from the Captivity.
vs. 64-65 - around
50,000 all told - how different from
the 600,000 "that were
men", beside women and
children that had come up out of
generations previously.
There are thirty-five
families or groups mentioned
here and what are
they among the thousands of
Compare this list
with the one in ch. 8 and you will
see names of members
of these thirty-five families
who did not come back
at the first, but came later.
vs. 36-39 -
Concerning the priests - although about ten
per cent of the
priests returned, only four courses out of
twenty-four, were
represented.
vs. 40-42 -Three
hundred and forty-one Levites out of
38,000 in David's
time but again, in the days of David
and Solomon, it was
the hay-day of
I wonder if in
v. 41 - "the
singers of Asaph" - compare I Chron. 25:1-6
The singers and
musicians were drawn from the three
great branches of
Levi"
Gershon - four
through Asaph
Kohath - six through
Jeduthun
Merari - fourteen
through Heman
It is remarkable that
no descendants of either Heman
or Jeduthun took part
in the return.
v. 42
New Testament example
- III John 9 - "Diotrephes, who
loveth to have the preeminence among
them,
receiveth us not"
v. 59 -
Lose hope, lose
faith, the care of this world -
etc. - Matt. 13:22 -
Demas - II Tim. 4:10
- "Demas has forsaken me,
having loved this present world, and
is departed...."
v. 63 -
Through sin something
is lost that is never
recovered!
vs. 65-67
v. 65 - Nehemiah says
two hundred and forty-five,
and so the apocryphal Esdras -
Perhaps,
in the great default of Levites, the
service
of these persons may have been used to
swell the sacred choruses of the
time -
ch. 3:10 - Hence, it may be, the
mention of
this otherwise unimportant fact?
Small numbers?
Judges 7:2
Zech. 4:6 - Bro.
Christian's first sermon text at
Special Names : we find this second entrance into
Canaan, this return from the
Babylonian
captivity, headed, spiritually, by
one
bearing the greatest of Jewish names
-
Zech. 3:8-10, 6:11-13
These names - Jeshua,
Zerubbabel and
are read into Heb. 7:9-10
Jesus Christ - the
High Priest of the Universe -
(Hebrews study)
"To Him give all
the prophets witness, that
through His name
whosoever believeth in
Him shall receive
remission of sins" - Acts 10:43
And let us not forget v. 21 - one step of the many
steps taken to fulfill the prophecy of Micah 5:2 -
the place where
heaven came nearest to earth!
Zerubbabel - the name
of a direct ancestor of
the Messiah Himself -
Matt. 1:13-16
ch. 3
The ruins were
carefully examined, the site of the
old altar was
ascertained, and care was taken to
put the new one in
its place.
A Precedent
v. 1 - "the
people gathered themselves together as
one man"
v. 2 - "then
stood up Jeshua"
"as it is
written in the Law" - it was an express
command of God to the
Israelites that sacrifice
should be offered
only at
which He should
appoint.
v. 3 - "And they
set the altar upon his bases....
and they offered burnt offerings
thereon
unto the Lord"
They said nothing
about the same message with just
a different
presentation because they were bound
as Moses was when God
said "See....look that thou
make all things
according to the pattern shewed
thee on the
mount"********
They built the new
altar upon the foundations
of the old one,
making it exactly conform to them.
This was done, no
doubt, to indicate that the
religion which the
exiles brought back from
which they had possessed prior to be carried
away into captivity.
v. 4 - "As it is written" - The Feast of
the Tabernacles -
for seven consecutive days - Lev.
23:31-42
"the daily burnt offerings by
number,
according to custom" - Deut.
29:13-38 -
we understand that all the
particulars were
observed.
God's reaction at the
first altar - Exodus 29:43-46
"morning and
evening" - the very pulse of the
Jewish religious life
- perpetual intercession -
How important under
the gospel dispensation for
the perpetual
intercession of Christ!
He needeth not - Heb.
7:27
"seeing He ever
liveth to make intercession for them"
Heb.
7:25
Herein is our pulse
of life -
The final result -
finished toil - permanent habitation -
peculiar joy!
I Kings 8:65-66
When We All Get to
Heaven!
SPIRITUAL PEDIGREE -
I think of all who live in
the world today who
are basically dead - dead to life -
dead to God - dead to
Jesus Christ - dead to the
Holy Spirit.
Posterity - Ps.
127:3-5
Luke 23:28-30
The
lost her life on her
wedding day in
Ky - Oct. 20, 1928
Mrs. Spurgeon - would
have been a witness in the
Judgment against her son Charles,
had he
not accepted Jesus Christ as his
personal
Savior!
"whoso shall
offend one of these little ones which
believe in me, it
were better for him that a millstone
were hanged about his
neck, and that he were
drowned in the depth
of the sea" - Matt. 18:6
The odds of being
born - sperm count - egg -
then after being born
against all odds, then to
miss the purpose of
life, to lose one's soul - "oh,
think of the masses
of humanity "without God
and without hope in
the world"
Bill Gaither
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