Life in Plan B: “The Shelter of Obedience” – Ezra 5:1-6:18

Pastor Jim Drake wrote an interesting word on this: “Several years ago, when we lived in Mississippi, we were members of a small church called Bel Aire Baptist Church. That little church was a blessing to our family. That’s where I was ordained as a deacon. And that’s where our oldest daughter was baptized. Well, several years after we’d moved away, we got word that they’d called a new pastor in 2003. God blessed his ministry tremendously. The church grew to the point where they had to go to two services and were starting a huge building program. Well, just about a month ago, toward the end of February, we got word that the pastor was diagnosed with cancer. Around three weeks later on March 14th, he was in the presence of Jesus. When I saw that, the first thing I thought was, why God? After all the years of struggling that church went through. After spending years without a pastor. After Katrina. After all the years of praying for growth. And then when it finally started to happen—You take their pastor? Why? Oh me of little faith. His wife writes a weekly column for the local newspaper. Listen to what she wrote when they found out about his cancer. She wrote about the big C. “The big C is not cancer, but rather: Christ, Calvary, the Cross, Crucified, Curses broken. Spirits of infirmity—Cast out, Captives freed, Covenant, Commandments. Commitment, Church, Confession, Clean. Communion, Conqueror, and Crown.” The big C isn’t cancer. The big C is Christ.”

What a good word to an action oriented “we can do it” generation! Here is a point that God needed to impress long ago, and a point we need to recall today!

Key Principle: When we do what we can do in our walk before God, and we acknowledge His control, God does what we cannot do. It is not that God’s control is limited to our belief, but rather that the understanding of his control is hidden from us, and we cannot celebrate. In the process of maturing a believer, God offers us an opportunity to rest in the shelter of his arms.

The story in Ezra 5 6, can be broken into two simple parts: 1. Preparing for God’s rescue (Ezra 5:1-5); 2. Experiencing God’s rescue (Ezra 5:6-6:29).

Part One: Preparing for God’s Rescue (Ezra 5:1-5):

Context: (Ezra 4:17-24) The setting for the rescue of God was the work stoppage of the building of the Temple that occurred because of false testimony. In other words the people of God were doing what God told them to do but were stalled by a trick of their enemy. This means that God’s rescue in context, is God’s defense of a project that God himself has called for. Not everything that a believer wants reflects God’s desire. I desire wealth, health, blessing, fun, friends — a whole lot of things that make my life more fun and easier. Yet, God may offer me “down time” and a slimming down of the budget of my life. He is God, and that is his prerogative. The principles of God’s rescue then must be carefully related to things God himself has called us to be and to do.

Confirmation: (Ezra 5:1) God sent prophets to the people to underscore His desire to get the temple built. When troubling times come into the life of a believer, it is important to evaluate whether these times have come because we are being disobedient or because we face an enemy. Seeking God in prayer concerning any trial that slows us down in our progress is prescribed in the Word (James 1). Additionally, we should check the word to be certain that the project itself is God’s actual call.

Contribution: (Ezra 5:2) Leadership without personal investment is talk not work. Words are powerful, but words are not enough. Real leaders get involved in the process, and the best leaders get out in front of the project. Note the end of verse two tells of another contribution. Not everyone could get involved in the physical reality of building. Some were limited by the failing nature of the tent they lived in — they got old and could not participate. Others, because of their call, were given other ways of contributing by offering support through the word to the people. These prophets were significantly used by God, though they did not pick up a stone. It is worth remembering that God often keeps in his work those who have a hard for him long after their body no longer is able to contribute what it once did. They offer the body a deep life of prayer, and a quiet and gentle wisdom that was born through the experience of the long walk through the woods of life with God.

Challenge: (Ezra 5:3-4) With forward progress there will always come challenge. The enemy is aware when we are making advances and he will not sit back. The governor of the province beyond the river attempted to slow the progress of the building of the Temple by getting the people caught up in an issue of law. The enemy need only pull our efforts from our call into defense mode in order to drain us. Zerubbabel showed his wisdom and leadership by answering the claim while continuing to work.

How do we prepare for God’s rescue? First, we must be sure we are asking God to revive something that he himself will be honored by. We do this by checking his word and challenging ourselves to carefully examine his specific commands. Second, leaders step in and invest themselves in God’s call. Third, those who do not lead invest in ways they are able to. Fourth, the people of God brace themselves for the inevitable opposition — they make a system that will handle the rise of difficulties. Finally, with each moment of victory they celebrate God’s goodness and God’s faithfulness.

Part Two: Experiencing God’s Rescue (Ezra 5:6-6:29):

What does it mean to experience the delivering hand of God in ministry or in your personal life? It means a Testimony that leads to a Test, that opens the door to God’s Terms for Triumph. It is an exciting prospect!

Testimony (5:6-16): The text includes an Aramaic copy of the actual letter sent to King Darius. The purpose of including the letter was to make sure that a record of the testimony of God’s victory would be remembered. Though this may seem obvious, it is necessary for God’s people to consistently offer testimony to the past — to remember the works of God and the victories of God for his people. Especially today, we have become a people without a history. We have forgotten the good things God has done. We have suffered from a redacted story of our history in modern education, that has excluded God.

•    Impact: (5:6-9) Note carefully that in verse 8, the unsaved watchers did not evaluate the work from the outside in the same way the Israelites evaluated it from you within. When Israel erected the second Temple, people cried because of its smaller size. Yet the description of these enemies reveals that it was an impressive building to those who were in the world. One of the problems we face as we mature in the Lord is that we forget what it is like to live life out in the world. We forget the harshness when we are surrounded by those who love us. We take for granted one another, and to love that is common among believers. When the church is following God, it is a warm place. It is a place of love and nurturing and care. The world has precious few places that it can describe in those terms. God instituted the family to be a place of protection. God instituted the church to be a place of growth and stability. The enemy is busy attacking both. At the same time, when people come into the midst of a growing and vibrant Bible believing community, they may meet 20 believers and become overwhelmed by the size of the commitment people have one toward another. Inside the church we may feel insignificant, but from the world’s perspective size is measured by the stability, warmth, and helpfulness of the dear ones around us.

•    Identification: (5:10-16) In the face of the question from the world, “Who are you?”, The people of God did not attempt to make themselves look powerful. First they identified themselves as the servant of God. Next, they made clear what their objective was in the project they were working on. Finally, and I find this especially interesting, they told the story of how they both had and lost the blessing of God in the past. They explained to their own sin and their own unworthiness. They explained that God turned his face away from them because of their own behaviors. Finally, they explained the point of salvation — the unworthy being granted good things from God.

Test: (5:17-6:2) It is easy to forget that while the people were searching for the documents, the believers continue to work with the threat of permanent interruption over their head. They had done what they could do. They explained their purposes, that they served the God of Abraham, and that they did not deserve the blessing that they were receiving. They offered a testimony of salvation, that is divine rescue, to those around them. Now all they could do was to keep going and to trust that God would take them through the test they were facing and lead them out the other side. The letter sent to Babylon requested that a search of the Royal Archives locate a specific document. The complexity of the governments of that time, the limited nature of records, and the obvious desire of the enemy of the people of God to stop the work made this a real test. A sigh of relief was likely the response of verse two when it says “a scroll was found” in Ecbatana.

Terms: (6:3-5) God brought to light the record of King Cyrus and his desire that the temple of God be rebuilt in Jerusalem. The temple platform was to be 90′ x 90′. The building of the temple was to include a three layer Temple built at the taxpayers expense. The utensils from the first Temple were to be returned and installed in the second Temple. Because God brought to light the letter, the believers needed no longer to fear the attacks of those around them that were shrouded in the lie that they were acting illegally.

Triumph: (6:6-18) God did more than simply endorse the temple. God offered a clear moment of rescue, when he stepped into the opposition and told them “back off”. Further, the people in verse seven were instructed to allow the Jewish people to rebuild with no interruption. Perhaps more startling to the governors of the provinces beyond the river was the reality that they were now being prescribed to pay for the work of the building of the Jewish Temple. In the end of verse eight they were commanded to give money, and in verse nine they were commanded to offer animals to the Jewish people that could be used in the sacrifices. Darius went even further, by warning the people that failure to follow through on his words would cause them to be impaled on poles (6:11).

Perhaps nowhere in the passage is the triumph more clear than in the closing verses of this section (6:12-18). Darius is recorded to have said that the work was being built to honor and glorify God (6:12). The governors were diligent to do exactly as they were instructed, and the Jewish people were able to complete the building of the temple by mid-March 516 B.C.E.

As the governors beyond the river no doubt were weeping, the Jewish people were sacrificing 100 balls 200 rams 400 lambs and some male goats, many of which were no doubt derived from the territories beyond the river. The rescue of God can be clearly seen in that God used the assets of his world to complete the work for his kingdom he desired to do.

The people of Zerubbabel were called to:

•    Move ahead with God’s stirring from His Word.
•    Move beyond their personal level of comfort and convenience.
•    Move ahead without the stalling of personal fear of the enemy’s distractions.

In 1877, Chief Joseph, leader of the Nez Perce Indians of what is now Oregon, was a warrior. He was recalled as great by William Tecumseh Sherman, and lauded as the “Red Napoleon” before he surrendered to the American Army. Lieutenant Charles Erskine Scott Wood claimed to have taken down the great chief’s words on the spot of is surrender:  “I am tired of fighting. Our chiefs are killed. Looking Glass is dead…The old men are all dead. It is the young men who say no and yes. He who led the young men is dead. It is cold and we have no blankets. The little children are freezing to death. My people, some of them, Have run away to the hills And have no blankets, no food. No one know where they are- Perhaps they are freezing to death. I want to have time to look for my children And see how many of them I can find. Maybe I shall find them among the dead. Hear me, my chiefs, I am tired. My heart is sad and sick. From where the sun now stands – I will fight no more forever.”
 
Can you hear the pain when he surrendered to his enemy? His recalled later the promise he made to his father on his father’s death mat. His father said to him: “My son, my body is returning to my mother earth, and my spirit is going very soon to see the Great Spirit Chief. When I am gone, think of your country. You are the chief of these people. They look to you to guide them. Always remember that your father never sold his country. You must stop your ears whenever you are asked to sign a treaty selling your home. A few years more and white men will be all around you. They have their eyes on this land. My son, never forget my dying words. This country holds your father’s body. Never sell the bones of your father and your mother.” How painful his surrender was! Yet he was BROKEN.

I get concerned when I hear churches and Pastors speak about our mission to reach lost people around the globe like that.

I am not unaware of the concerns that the church faces today.

When a boxer falls to the canvas, everything in his body shouts to him “Stay down”. He may hear from his corner, “Don’t get up!” Yet no one wins from the canvas. If he wants to win, the sheer resolve to do what he came to do will bring him back to his feet. We are watching our country change. We are facing the changes of our children and of the moral system that we have cherished. We have taken some shots and some good ministries have fallen to the canvas. Yet, we are not finished.

Prophet upon prophet of the Bible was clear: dark times would come before the light flashed from heavenly places. Peter warned in 2 Peter 3: “This is now, beloved, the second letter I am writing to you in which I am stirring up your sincere mind by way of reminder, that you should remember the words spoken before hand by the holy prophets and the commandment of the Lord and Savior spoken by your apostles. Note this first of all, that in the last days mockers will come with their mocking, following after their own lusts, and saying, “where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all continues just as it was from the beginning of creation.”

Often we read these words and think they reflect a universal decline away from the truth. If we continue reading we arrived at first 10 that says “but the day of the Lord will come like a thief, in which the heavens will pass away with the war and the elements will be destroyed with intense heat, and the earth and its works will be burned up. Since all these things are to be destroyed in this way, what sort of people ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness.”

The fact is that God is not broke and He has not finished. He has all the resources necessary to complete all the objectives he has called us to do. The mistakes of ministry are the same as the mistakes individual believers make it home. We take on things God didn’t tell us to do. We operate without the necessary systems to check that we are operating in accordance with God’s Word. We overextend ourselves by taking on things with no plan or mechanism to cover the bills. God is not honored by the half done projects that were hastily conceived and poorly planned by his people. We must be careful.

More than that, we must do more to ensure that we are in fact working in the work of God, working by the word of God, and working for the glory of God. Far too much is done for ourselves and by our own rules. When we get in a jam, we look up to God and ask for him to rescue us, and we forget to ignore that we have not called on him, nor sought him in the whole project until we could not complete it.

When God’s people do God’s work, God’s way, they will see God” supply of every necessary resource to accomplish the call. God is under no obligation to waste his resources for a group of people that are self-promoting, and trust in their own abilities rather than humbly fall before him seeking his face. When God’s people our humble themselves and prayerfully wait on him to do what only he can do, all the while completing what they can do with their hands, God shows up in a fantastic rescue. That’s the kind of God he is!