Hope From the Word

Guest (Male): There is a growing danger of confusing or diluting the gospel that saves. Pastor Bill Luebkemann with what some are saying, even within the church.

Bill Luebkemann: Let's intermarry our message of salvation by Jesus Christ alone with some other message, the social gospel. Let's dilute it and water it down. And yes, to be saved, you have to accept the Lord and be a good person, or to be saved, you have to accept the Lord and give money to the poor or do good things.

Some of those may not be bad things. It's not a bad thing to help the poor. It's not a bad thing to do good works, but it's not what saves you.

Guest (Male): Saved by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. That's our message and this is Hope From the Word with Bill Luebkemann. Bill is the pastor of Calvary Chapel of Marlton.

We continue in the Old Testament book of Ezra today and see that the people of God were once again working together and praising the Lord. This stirred opposition against God's people as it always does. There are some important parallels and lessons in this for us today. Let's uncover them now as we join Pastor Bill in Ezra chapter three and verse four.

Bill Luebkemann: Remembering God's providence and excited to be a part of this plan that's going on here. And as it is written, they followed the law of Moses here. It says they also kept the feast of tabernacles as it is written. They looked up to Moses. It said earlier, Moses, the man of God. They recognized him as a man of God, as one who spoke forth God's word who they could trust.

What Moses said, they believed and they did and they accepted his writings. And they believed that these things really happened, the Exodus and the escape from Egypt. So they started up the entire system here of offerings and worship.

In verse five, afterwards they offered the regular burnt offering and those for new moons and for all the appointed feasts of the Lord that were consecrated and those of everyone who willingly offered a freewill offering to the Lord. They start up the whole system here. They did the offering in the morning, they did the offering in the evening, they did the offering on the new moon. They did the offerings on the feasts.

They gathered together for the major feasts of the year, worshipped God, and made the required offering. And you can see why these folks were the ones who returned also. They were willing to put their money where their mouth was. And those of everyone who willingly offered a freewill offering to the Lord. They didn't follow him there and keep their money to themselves. They freely gave of their possessions to help to make this stuff happen.

From the first day of the seventh month they began to offer burnt offerings to the Lord, although the foundation of the temple of the Lord had not been laid. There was still much to do here, but they could worship God while they were doing it. And they knew that the temple was important and they knew they wanted to rebuild it. And they knew that was going to take a while and it did, it took many years. But they could nonetheless worship God even in the absence of the temple by making offerings on this altar.

They also gave money to the masons and the carpenters and food, drink, and oil to the people of Sidon and Tyre to bring cedar logs from Lebanon to the sea to Joppa, according to the permission which they had from Cyrus, king of Persia. They didn't have much, but what they did have, they used for God's glory. And they didn't have a whole lot of people there, but they got the job done right. They're going to do the best job they can. They're going to get the best supplies, the best people, the best that they could put on the job to do the best thing they could.

You know, the original temple was made with imported help. If you look back, Second Chronicles, when Solomon was getting to ready to build the temple, he sent a letter to Hiram, king of Tyre, telling him what he was going to be doing and saying, hey, send me over somebody who can work with wood or with gold and silver and bronze and iron and purple and crimson and blue and who has the skill to engrave with the skillful men who are with me. And send me cedar and cypress and algum logs from Lebanon, for I know that your servants have skill to cut timber in Lebanon. And indeed, my servants will be with your servants to gather timber for me in abundance, for the temple which I am about to build shall be great and wonderful. And indeed, I will give to your servants the woodsmen who cut timber, twenty thousand kors of ground wheat, twenty thousand kors of barley, twenty thousand baths of wine, and twenty thousand baths of oil.

Solomon saying here to Hiram, the king of Tyre, send me this stuff and I'm going to pay you with ground wheat and barley and wine and oil. And the king writing back to him, Hiram, king of Tyre, writing back and saying, yes, the wheat, the barley, the wine, the oil, look, send it on over. Just keep it coming here and we'll cut down the wood as much as you need and we're going to bring it down by the sea to you.

And you see kind of the same picture here in verse seven here. They gave money to the masons and the carpenters. So you see, they had woodworkers and craftsmen there. And they gave food, drink, and oil to the people of Sidon and Tyre to bring logs from Lebanon to the sea to Joppa, the same way it was done when the original temple was built. According to the permission which they had from Cyrus king of Persia. He was the one that ordained that they should be able to do this.

Now in verse eight, they begin to build the temple. Now in the second month of the second year, so we were in the seventh month of the first year, now we're into the second year, second month, so we're about six months later. Now in the second month of the second year of their coming to the house of God at Jerusalem, Zerubbabel, the son of Shealtiel, Jeshua, the son of Jozadak, and the rest of their brethren, the priests and the Levites, and all those who had come out of the captivity to Jerusalem, began work and appointed the Levites from twenty years old and above to oversee the work of the house of the Lord.

Then Jeshua with his sons and brothers, Kadmiel with his sons and the sons of Judah, arose as one to oversee those working on the house of God, the sons of Henadad with their sons and their brothers, the Levites. Solomon also, he began building in the second month also. Isn't it a number of parallels back to Solomon? And if you look in First Kings, chapter six, you see him beginning in the second month. And we're talking about springtime now and a time of new beginnings.

The seventh month, feast of tabernacles, this was a time of harvest. Now we're into a time of new beginnings, a springtime, a great time to start building something. And we see organization here and unity and working together towards a common goal. They were united here in one project and it was not a one-man project.

And the people didn't just do their own thing here. They worked together to make it happen. They didn't all come in and say, okay, I'm doing my thing, you do yours, stay out of my way here. They worked together and they were organized, almost like they had a degree in management or something. It's amazing that they could pull this thing off.

And it gives the age of the Levites here by the way towards the end of verse eight, appointed the Levites from twenty years old and above to oversee the work of the house of the Lord. You know, you may notice if you read through the Bible the age that the Levites could work varied. Over in Numbers chapter four, God told them the Levites could serve beginning when they were thirty years old up to when they were fifty. But over in Numbers chapter eight, it says they could start working at twenty-five and go up to the age of fifty. And in other places, it says twenty-five or twenty or thirty. So the age that the Levites were allowed to begin working, well, maybe it just depended on how many Levites there were and how much work there was to do and they adjusted it accordingly.

You get the impression here not much infighting going on. You get the impression that these people are united in their work and in their common goal. When the builders laid the foundation of the temple of the Lord, the priests stood in their apparel with trumpets and the Levites, the sons of Asaph, with cymbals to praise the Lord according to the ordinance of David, king of Israel. And they sang responsively, praising and giving thanks to the Lord, for he is good, for his mercy endures forever toward Israel. Then all the people shouted with a great shout when they praised the Lord because the foundation of the house of the Lord was laid.

Now this is probably just the beginning of the foundation. Sort of like setting the cornerstone, the first rock or whatever. I don't think it means they laid the whole entire foundation because that was probably a many-year project. But they laid the foundation and it was an exciting time. And you know, if they build a building today, sometimes we're going to put the cornerstone in, it's a big ceremony. If it's a civic building, maybe the mayor is there. If it's a privately owned building, maybe the company founder is there or the president or the board of directors and you'll see it in the newspaper and they'll take pictures and cut ribbons and whatever. And that's the kind of thing they had going on here.

The priests were wearing their priestly apparel and they had trumpets and the Levites, the sons of Asaph, they had cymbals and they were praising the Lord according to the ordinance of David, king of Israel. Remember David had set out the whole way that the worship was to happen. And they sang responsively, they had some kind of responsive singing where the leader maybe he sang one line and they responded with a line. And this was the main line, for he is good, for his mercy endures forever toward Israel.

How much that is, the people who were carried away to Babylon probably were not singing, he is good, his mercy endures forever. But how appropriate it would seem as they're returning to Israel that they're reminded here and singing about how good God is. He is good. And you were carried away into captivity because of your sin. That was your own choice. That was your own choosing. You chose to sin and you were carried away. And now God's goodness is bringing them back here, not because these people were not sinners, but no doubt many of them had called out to him from their captivity.

And they're saying wow, God is good after all that our country did, after all the way we left him and worshipped other idols and gods and things that were made of wood and stone, after all the things we did and how we were carried away into captivity and here he is, he still has mercy towards us. Surely his mercy does endure forever. They had good reason to say that if God's mercy was upon them at this point. How much more could it possibly be? You know, how much more could they have done? They did everything wrong and God's mercy was still there for them to bring them back.

Then all the people shouted with a great shout when they praised the Lord because the foundation of the house of the Lord was laid. What an exciting thing it was to know we started. These people are probably all going to be dead by the time it's finished. It doesn't get finished for a long time, decades, many decades. More than fifty years maybe, I'm not sure the exact number of years, but it doesn't get finished for a very long time.

But many of the priests and Levites and heads of the fathers' houses, old men who had seen the first temple, wept with a loud voice when the foundation of this temple was laid before their eyes. Yet many shouted aloud for joy. You know, I think I said that wrong. I think it was finished in about twenty years. I'm not positive of that so many of them would have seen it, but it was still a long way away.

But many of the priests and the Levites, they are the old men, those who had seen the first temple. These would have been people who were seventy years old or more. And if they were seventy years old, they would have been being born when they were going into captivity, wouldn't remember the old temple. So you figure maybe somebody who was eighty years old who could remember the old temple as a lad of ten or five. They just have this vague impression. Man, when I was five, my parents took me over here and I saw the temple and I can still remember it, it's burned into my memory.

I can think back to when I was five and I can't remember too many things. I remember once my mother took my brother and I on a walk around the block and we got lost. We were living in our new home in Willingboro and we were a few blocks away and she didn't know how to get back and I certainly didn't know how to get back being four or five years old. A policeman came by and helped us find our house. How embarrassing that was perhaps to my mother.

But you can think back to little snapshots that you have tucked away in your memory of what you can remember as a kid of five or ten years old. And these old men here, they've seen the first temple and all the time they're living in Babylon, just thinking back to that temple that they saw when they were young. And they here they were weeping, knowing that it's going to rise again. It's going to stand again.

Some of them were weeping, some of them were shouting aloud, yet many shouted aloud for joy so that the people could not discern the noise of the shout of joy from the noise of the weeping of the people, for the people shouted with a loud shout and the sound was heard afar off. There was so much noise you couldn't separate the weeping from the crying from the shouting for joy. It was a momentous occasion here. Emotions, different emotions for different age groups and all that these people had gone through to come back here to this place.

And the noise was heard afar off, it says that at the very end of chapter three. The noise was heard afar off and what happens then? Well, the enemies of the Lord get all tworked up over this. Now when the adversaries, read that enemies, and when the adversaries of Judah and Benjamin heard that the descendants of the captivity were building the temple of the Lord God of Israel, they came to Zerubbabel and the heads of the fathers' houses and said to them, let us build with you for we seek your God as you do and we have sacrificed to him since the days of Esarhaddon, king of Assyria, who brought us here.

But Zerubbabel and Jeshua and the rest of the heads of the fathers' houses of Israel said to them, you may do nothing with us to build a house for our God, but we alone will build to the Lord God of Israel as king Cyrus the king of Persia has commanded us. Then the people of the land tried to discourage the people of Judah. They troubled them in building and hired counselors against them to frustrate their purpose all the days of Cyrus, king of Persia, even until the reign of Darius, king of Persia.

So their adversaries were here and we saw that mentioned back in chapter three, verse three when it talked about the fear that these people had. And we see it up in verse four when it talks about them being discouraged or trying when it talks about their adversaries trying to discourage them. And we see it again in the remainder of chapter four where their adversaries tried to prevent them from working.

And again, these were the Gentiles who were resettled into this area. These were Jews who might have been left behind who weren't really believing Jews or they were descendants of or some mixture of all of them including those that were intermarried here. And these Jews were trying to maintain their purity as they were told to do by the law.

When these people came to them and said, hey, let us build the temple with you. Hey, we seek your God also. We've even been doing it before you got here. We've been seeking your God all along. Let us help, let's be a part of it. You know, the Jews wanted to maintain their purity, something that is looked down upon today because today the only thing you're supposed to do is be welcoming of everybody. Let them all come in. Whatever they believe is fine. They can all believe everything. It's fine. It doesn't seem like most people care about whether what they believe today is right. It's just fine. This kind of stuff doesn't sit well today.

But the closest analogy I can give you is that Christians should not be marrying unbelievers. They were told not to intermarry with the other peoples for the same reason believers today are told not to marry unbelievers. Don't do that. That's just going to drag you down. Either you're going to get the unbeliever to be a believer or they're going to get you to be an unbeliever and that's too dangerous. For what do we have in common, light with darkness?

Let's be clear here, these people were their enemies, adversaries. They weren't there to be friends out of the kindness of their heart. They were there to be subversive. And that becomes very clear as we continue reading here. We can see that from the things that they do. If we look back in Second Kings for a minute, chapter seventeen, here's a description of those people who were settled in the land. When Assyria carried away the Northern Kingdom into captivity and resettled other people in that land, here's a description of those people they settled in the land. And they feared the Lord, yet served their own gods, according to the rituals of the nations from among whom they were carried away.

They feared the Lord, but they served their own gods. How did they serve them? They served them according to the rituals of the nations from among whom they were carried away. They followed the pagan practices of those that were there before. And it didn't end because it says in verse thirty-four, to this day they continue practicing the former rituals. They do not fear the Lord, nor do they follow their statutes or their ordinances or the law and command.

Well wait a minute, you might ask, how can it say they fear the Lord in verse thirty-three and in verse thirty-four they don't fear the Lord? What's going on there? Well we're talking about people who just had a lot of gods. They feared the Lord enough that they wanted to make him one of their gods, but they believed in all these different gods. We're afraid of them all, and so we'll serve them all and we'll bow down to all of them. We'll just cover all of our bases and hopefully things will go well for us.

We're talked about people here, they didn't believe in the one true God. They were fine worshipping every god. And this is the way pagans do it. The Lord God of Israel says there's only one God. He says only me should you worship. You don't worship other gods and you don't worship other gods and the true God. You only worship the one true God and any other combination is just as bad as no combination at all. If you worship the true God as well as other gods or you just worship other gods, they're equally bad because he wants all of our attention, all of our worship. He wants it all to go to him. He doesn't want to share that with anybody and he's not going to share it.

The Jews didn't give in to these folks here. They said, no, sorry, we're not going to do that. We are not going to build the house with you. You may do nothing with us to build the house for our God, we alone will build to the Lord God of Israel as king Cyrus the king of Persia has commanded us. The Jews didn't give in but the hostility remained. These people would continue to work against the Jews for many, many, many years. Working against them.

And you know, a parallel today that I can maybe see is the constant drumbeat within the church or without the church to get off message. Let's intermarry our message of salvation by Jesus Christ alone, in God alone through faith alone in God alone. Let's intermarry that message with some other message, the social gospel and all kind of other things. And let's dilute it and water it down. And yes, to be saved you have to accept the Lord and be a good person, or to be saved you have to accept the Lord and give money to the poor or do good things.

Works. There is a strong movement within the church today to mix works with faith. You need to have faith and you need to have works. Some people say they both save. And let's have them both. And let's specifically do this kind of work or that kind of work. Let's intermarry the social gospel with the real gospel.

Some of them may not be bad things. It's not a bad thing to help the poor. It's not a bad thing to do good works, but it's not what saves you. And here we have these people here. They refuse to become diluted, to take away their worship of the Lord, to follow anyone else. Then the people of the land tried to discourage the people of Judah. They troubled them in building and hired counselors against them to frustrate their purpose all the days of Cyrus.