Ezra and Nehemiah
Notes
Transcript
We heard Ezra and Nehemiah.
We heard Ezra and Nehemiah.
Ezrah and Nehemiah were one book in the past.
Ezrah and Nehemiah are broken down into three sections.
Summary Outline:
First Zerubabbel in brining in 42k and rebuilding the temple.
Second Ezrah brought in community and the teaching of God’s law and way.
Third Nehemiah rebuilt the walls and gates of the city.
The story begins with a decree from Cyrus (Ezra 1:1-4), the king of Persia who is moved by God to allow the exiles to return to Jerusalem and rebuild the temple.
These story’s spark hope in unusual ways.
After they rebuilt the temple some were upset that it was not the same as the original.
The books Ezra and Nehemiah focuses in on three key leaders who led the rebuilding efforts: Zerubbabel, Ezra, and Nehemiah. Zerubbabel first led a large group back to Jerusalem to rebuild the temple (Ezra 1-6). About 60 years later, Ezra arrived in Jerusalem to teach the Torah and to rebuild the community (Ezra 7-10). He was soon followed by Nehemiah, who led the rebuilding of Jerusalem’s walls (Neh. 1-7).
All three stories are designed to be parallel to one other. Each begins with a king of Persia being prompted by God to send a leader to Jerusalem while offering resources and support. Then, each leader encounters opposition in their efforts, which they overcome.
The beginning of Abundant Life was a lot like the time of Zerubabbel.
Bringing an entire community into a city to bring Abundant Life to Bellingham and the world.
That continues today…
“Thus says Cyrus king of Persia, ‘The Lord, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth and He has appointed me to build Him a house in Jerusalem, which is in Judah.
Now when the enemies of Judah and Benjamin heard that the people of the exile were building a temple to the Lord God of Israel,
they approached Zerubbabel and the heads of fathers’ households, and said to them, “Let us build with you, for we, like you, seek your God; and we have been sacrificing to Him since the days of Esarhaddon king of Assyria, who brought us up here.”
After they settle in Jerusalem, they rebuild the altar for offering sacrifices and later the temple itself. The foundation laying ceremony (Ezra 3) and the temple’s final dedication (Ezra 6) are key moments. The past stories of the tabernacle and temple’s dedication when the fiery cloud of God’s presence descended should come to mind (Lev. 9; 1 Kgs. 8). That’s not what happens in this case, and while some people were happy about the new temple, the elders who had seen the previous temple of Solomon cry out in grief. This building is nothing like their glorious past or the hopes they had for the future.
We have been and are now in the time of Ezra.
In the next section (Ezra 7-10), we move decades into the future and are introduced to Ezra, a leader among the exiled Israelites in Babylon. He’s a Torah scholar and teacher and is appointed by Artaxerxes, king of Persia, to lead another wave of people back to Jerusalem. He wants to bring about social and spiritual renewal among the people.
“I, even I, King Artaxerxes, issue a decree to all the treasurers who are in the provinces beyond the River, that whatever Ezra the priest, the scribe of the law of the God of heaven, may require of you, it shall be done diligently,
Then I proclaimed a fast there at the river of Ahava, that we might humble ourselves before our God to seek from Him a safe journey for us, our little ones, and all our possessions.
For I was ashamed to request from the king troops and horsemen to protect us from the enemy on the way, because we had said to the king, “The hand of our God is favorably disposed to all those who seek Him, but His power and His anger are against all those who forsake Him.”
So we fasted and sought our God concerning this matter, and He listened to our entreaty.
In our lives God’s love has been invading our hearts to remove the fear we have of Him not coming through for us.
Then we journeyed from the river Ahava on the twelfth of the first month to go to Jerusalem; and the hand of our God was over us, and He delivered us from the hand of the enemy and the ambushes by the way.
At point in the story Ezra gets real upset about all the mixed marriages. He points to how the law said not to marry from other tribes or their gods will become our gods.
This speaks of removing places in our lives that rule over us instead of God being our Lord and guide.
When Ezra shared the words of God from the Tora people were convicted and they had hope for being part of God’s way.
We have been in a long season of God revealing who He is.
He has invited us to become His people.
This means we have been going through a process of the places in our lives that are not of Him being exposed and then His grace moves in to become like Him.