Life in Plan B: “Delay of Game!”- Ezra 4:5-5:1 and Haggai 1:1-15

One of the most frustrating positions professional sports players can find themselves in is a game that is delayed by outside and uncontrolled circumstances. This past Halloween, the Antonio Spurs needed Batman to help them when they were rather ironically frustrated as a bat invaded their game. The mascot took out a net, but it wasn’t until the quick hands of Manu Ginobili swatted down the swooping bat that the bat could be removed (unharmed) and the game could continue. Manu ended up getting rabies shots, and the swooping bat made it on to national news – even for non sports fans. It was a picture for all of us who have chased one around a bedroom to rid ourselves of the invaders at some point in the past. I have my own memories, but I will not share them.
 
We don’t like delays. Detours are an annoyance. We are a time sensitive culture. It plays not only into our impatience with people, but it reflects in our immature view of rewards from God in this life. We want to do well and get well. We want to see those who do evil promptly get evil – so the closed system of “cause and effect” will reassure our sense of the Spiritual world.
 
Delays from God are never welcome, no matter how spiritually mature we claim to be. The Bible reveals that sometimes the delays are caused by the patience of God for someone else (2 Peter 3). Sometimes the delays in our lives are because God has allowed the enemy’s forces a time of victory (Daniel 10: three weeks of fasting and the angel was delayed). In any case, none of us want delays in the game of life. We want answers when we hurt, judgment when someone sins against us, and blessing the minute we yield to God and start doing right.
 
One of the areas in my life I find the greatest impatience is when I get started on a project. When I get up I want to get going. I don’t want to chat about the thing, I want to do it. I don’t want to do a few errands first, I want to get to the job that is at hand. Any delay makes me irritable and edgy. I focus best when I can clear everything else out of the way and just get to it! When I don’t get right into the project, I end up fighting NOT ONLY the project and its work, but my own sluggishness and apathy. If I don’t get to it right away, I become easily glued to the seat and unwilling to move forward. Apparently, I am not the first person with this problem
 
Key Principle: When the enemy stalls forward movement and I feel in a delayed rut – God prescribes two things – careful obedience and thoughtful reverence.
 

The Problem – The Enemy threw at the people four time tested issues designed to derail the progress.

Last time we left off in the story of our returnees to the land as they established their “Plan B” lives – with a series of problems they needed to overcome. I reviewed four problems with you:

 
Where you see the damage of any or all of these four, the enemy has left his fingerprints.
 
 * Discouragement: The service was stirring with jubilation over the fulfillment of God’s promise, yet some of the older men were not crying out in jubilation. They were deeply discouraged because of the decreased quality of the stone work on the foundation compared to the previous Temple.
 
 * Deception: As news of the Temple progress was sounded to the neighbors who were not in favor of the Jews return, some of the clans came to the governor and the council of the families of Judah and asked: “Let us build with you, for we seek your God as well – and have for generations! That attempt at deception was aimed at a barely tested leadership.
 
 * Distraction: As a result, the refused people began to distract (merappim: to relax) the people from their work. This probably included fear mongering that kept them stirred up, as well as some tactics of distraction in RELAXATION calls and methods. Fun was not wrong, but distraction was. People would likely be quite surprised when they find out how many hours we actually WASTE of each day! Also we should note the fact that they plotted and effectively disrupted the returnees (bawlah: trouble or frighten) from completing their tasks by making them constantly fearful (Ezra 4:4).
 
 * Disinformation: Finally, the group hired political lobbyists in Babylon to add confusion to the reports of Zerubbabel sent back to the King (Ezra 4:5).
 
When we pick up the text and read the next installment, from 4:5-5:1, we find that TIMES HAD CHANGED. The enemies of Judah needed new methods to hurt the progress of the work of building the Temple.
 
Don’t get lost in the story, God has a point to sharing the story of the re-establishment of the people in Judah and re-building of the Temple.. When you begin to build in your life obedient steps on the ashes of your old life – the enemy will counter you. He will use:

•  Your PAST,
•  PRESENT CIRCUMSTANCES,
•  PEOPLE in your life
• Your own PERSONALITY (in particular the un-yielded parts) 
• The direct attack of PRINCIPALITIES (powerful spiritual attacks) against you.  

When the old methods don’t work, he’ll adjust them to your new successes. He may make you feel competent or even prideful over your progress! In our story he tried a different tactic.
 
New Attack – DEFAMATION AND DELAY:
 
Cyrus and Darius the Mede faded from history, and a new ruler, Artaxerxes I (465-424 BCE) rose to the throne. He was the son of Xerxes I of Persia and Amestris, daughter of Otanes. He was sometimes called Longimanus in Latin, allegedly because his right hand was longer than his left. He had a new approach to world power. The Persian march west to dominate and maintain the world had been thwarted by the Greeks, so military action between Greece and Persia was at a standstill. When Artaxerxes I took power, he tried to weaken the Athenians by funding their enemies in Greece. He offered asylum to Themistocles, who was the winner of the Battle of Salamis, after Themistocles was ostracized from Athens. He took a new approach – a more studied and thoughtful diplomatic approach to things.
 
Sensing the times, the enemies of the Judean reconstruction moved in a diplomatic letter to stop their progress, and for awhile the tactic stopped the work.
 
Ezra 4:11: “Now this is the copy of the letter which they sent to him: “To King Artaxerxes: Your servants, the men in the region beyond the River, and now 12 let it be known to the king that the Jews who came up from you have come to us at Jerusalem; they are rebuilding the rebellious and evil city and are finishing the walls and repairing the foundations. 13 “Now let it be known to the king, that if that city is rebuilt and the walls are finished, they will not pay tribute, custom or toll, and it will damage the revenue of the kings. 14 “Now because we are in the service of the palace, and it is not fitting for us to see the king’s dishonor, therefore we have sent and informed the king, 15 so that a search may be made in the record books of your fathers. And you will discover in the record books and learn that that city is a rebellious city and damaging to kings and provinces, and that they have incited revolt within it in past days; therefore that city was laid waste. 16 “We inform the king that if that city is rebuilt and the walls finished, as a result you will have no possession in the province beyond the River.”

There were five specific statements in the letter that illustrate how the enemy attacks through a diplomatic effort like this:

 
 1. Misleading Information: Read LIE. The basis of this letter was that Judeans were “rebuilding the rebellious and evil city and are finishing the walls and repairing the foundations” (4:12). They were doing NO SUCH THING. In 4:24 the work that was stopped was still work on the Temple and its precinct. That was what they came to do, and that is what they were accomplishing. Building the walls of the city was a lie, told with the intent to show them setting up something evil.
 
Do not anticipate the enemy playing fair. He will tell lies about you, because he is the father of lies. He will exaggerate, stretch and even totally fabricate. People will hear things about you that you are totally unaware of. They will misread your intentions based on what they heard, even though what they heard bore no resemblance to what actually happened.
 
 2. Harmful Speculation: After the lie was offered about what the Judeans were building, the enemy skillfully added to the LIE the WHY. They offered as fact the motives of the people – to set up a rebellion. 4:13: “Now let it be known to the king, that if that city is rebuilt and the walls are finished, they will not pay tribute, custom or toll, and it will damage the revenue of the kings.” Isn’t that amazing? They could read the minds and hearts of the Judeans so well they knew WHY they were rebuilding a wall they weren’t rebuilding! The point is clear – they took off the gloves to make sure the king knew that there were “indications” of a fomenting rebellion.
 
 3. False Motivation: After they were finished embellishing their lie about the walls and their clairvoyance of knowing the hearts of the Judeans – they expanded the false statement by stating their OWN MOTIVATION, which was also a lie: 4:14 “Now because we are in the service of the palace, and it is not fitting for us to see the king’s dishonor, therefore we have sent and informed the king.” Oscar Mayer doesn’t make bologna that full of filler! They had no intention of helping the king, they were in it for themselves. Cloak it in any philanthropic gesture and political stability movement – and it all comes down to them want to get the Temple project to STOP.
 
 4. Selective History: In order to make their unsubstantiated claim look more credible, they asked the king to reach back into a PORTION of the history of the Empire. There WERE times of disobedience on the record. People with a record can’t be trusted, can they? That is the import of 4:15 “you will discover in the record books and learn that that city is a rebellious city and damaging to kings and provinces, and that they have incited revolt within it in past days..” There it is – use the selective history of their past against them. The best part of this plan is that it APPEARS so OBJECTIVE. What it ignores is the reality that the PAST record is selective and may have NO BEARING on what they were currently doing!
 
 5. Fear Mongering: As a final stroke of political genius, the enemies of the “Judean Plan B” team furnished the classic “slippery slope” argument that was designed to produce FEAR in the King. The western flank of the Empire was already under assault, and he was spending his days and nights trying to work alliances that would collapse the influence of Athens. The last thing he wanted was the collapse of the support of another province. It is with that in mind the enemies wrote in 4:16 “We inform the king that if that city is rebuilt and the walls finished, as a result you will have no possession in the province beyond the River.” Another remarkable moment in Tea Leaf reading. The king should fear because we know where this will lead! Forget that they have no army to speak of, and no real means to sustain themselves without his continued alliance. Forget that the Athenians are no better loved by the Judeans than the Babylonians, and also forget that there was no positive past history between Athens and Jerusalem. Be afraid!
 

In the short term the forward progress was HALTED. The Temple work came to a standstill for a number of years. No new pieces of the work that God brought tears to their eyes with could be added to. They were DEAD IN THE WATER – a boat with no sail and no engine. 4:24 simply says: “Then work on the house of God in Jerusalem ceased, and it was stopped until the second year of the reign of Darius king of Persia.”

 
OK, that’s what THEY did. What should the believer do? How will God respond? What happens when the progress is shut down and you have to restart?
 
 1. Start at the beginning – with God’s Word. It was a LIE that shut down the forward movement, but it is TRUTH that get’s it going again! God sent Haggai and Zechariah to address the problem of getting the Temple priority back on track.
 
 2. Face the real problems that God indicates through His Word. Hearing is one thing, changing is another. God doesn’t waste Words – He accomplishes with His Word: Isaiah 55:11 “So will My word be which goes forth from My mouth; It will not return to Me empty, Without accomplishing what I desire, And without succeeding in the matter for which I sent it.” If the Word isn’t changing you – it isn’t God that is resisting the change!
 

God’s Conviction – Anatomy of the “Restart”

To illustrate how this ‘RESTART” happened, take a closer look in Haggai 1:1-15 and you will observe how God exposed their underlying issues and moved them to the changes to HIS AGENDA.

 
First, God initiated conviction through His Word.
 
Haggai 1:1 “In the second year of Darius the king, on the first day of the sixth month, the word of the LORD came by the prophet Haggai…” (the date was August of 520)
 
Second, God dealt with leaders about the obedience of all.
 
1:1b “…to Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua the son of Jehozadak, the high priest…”
 
Third, God challenged their words with their true heart issues.
 
2 “Thus says the LORD of hosts, ‘This people says, “The time has not come, even the time for the house of the LORD to be rebuilt. 3 Then the word of the LORD came by Haggai the prophet, saying, 4 “Is it time for you yourselves to dwell in your paneled houses while this house lies desolate?” 5 Now therefore, thus says the LORD of hosts, “Consider your ways!
 
Fourth, God connected their sin with their struggles and lack of blessing.
 
6 “You have sown much, but harvest little; you eat, but there is not enough to be satisfied; you drink, but there is not enough to become drunk; you put on clothing, but no one is warm enough; and he who earns, earns wages to put into a purse with holes.” 7 Thus says the LORD of hosts, “Consider your ways!
 
9 “You look for much, but behold, it comes to little; when you bring it home, I blow it away. Why?” declares the LORD of hosts, “Because of My house which lies desolate, while each of you runs to his own house. 10 “Therefore, because of you the sky has withheld its dew and the earth has withheld its produce. 11 “I called for a drought on the land, on the mountains, on the grain, on the new wine, on the oil, on what the ground produces, on men, on cattle, and on all the labor of your hands.”
 
Fifth, God clearly and carefully spoke directly to their will, and told them what to do!
 
8 “Go up to the mountains, bring wood and rebuild the temple, that I may be pleased with it and be glorified,” says the LORD.
 

Their Response – An Opportunity for “Restart”

When God finished speaking, the next step was entirely on the followers. God could offer them no more to bring them into blessing if they refused Him. There was no other plan than to honor God’s Word or continue to struggle apart from Him. Wisely, the people responded:

Haggai 1:12 “Then Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, and Joshua the son of Jehozadak, the high priest, with all the remnant of the people, obeyed the voice of the LORD their God and the words of Haggai the prophet, as the LORD their God had sent him. And the people showed reverence (yiraw: recognized and responded to His awesomeness) for the LORD.”
 

God’s Comfort – The Renewal Begins

The special manifestation of the presence of the Lord and the requisite power to accomplish His tasks came in the surrender and obedience!

13 Then Haggai, the messenger of the LORD, spoke by the commission of the LORD to the people saying, “ ‘I am with you,’ declares the LORD.” 14 So the LORD stirred up the spirit of Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and the spirit of Joshua the son of Jehozadak, the high priest, and the spirit of all the remnant of the people; and they came and worked on the house of the LORD of hosts, their God, 15 on the twenty-fourth day of the sixth month in the second year of Darius the king.
 
When the enemy stalls forward movement and I feel in a delayed rut – God prescribes two things – careful obedience and thoughtful reverence. It is only there you will find God’s presence and power abound.