Hope From the Word

Guest (Male): Coming up on Hope from the Word, a hard truth for those who desire to live godly lives.

Bill Luebkemann: If you desire to live godly in Christ Jesus, the Bible doesn't say you might suffer persecution or, you know, two out of every 22 people will suffer it or if you're unlucky, you'll suffer it. It says all. That means everyone will suffer persecution if you desire to live a godly life for Christ Jesus. The Jews, they've been persecuted longer than there's even been a church because they've been around longer. Churches are persecuted today, believers are persecuted, anyone doing anything for the Lord is persecuted. You can just assume it's going to happen if you're walking with him.

Guest (Male): Everyone faces trouble and contrary to what some teach, God's people are not immune. Today on Hope from the Word, we offer an example. It's been said when trouble comes into our lives, we can do one of three things. We can seek to escape it, endure it, or enlist it. And if we can learn to enlist it, then the trial becomes our servant instead of our master. It can work for us as God works all things together for good. If you're able, open your Bible to Ezra chapter 4 verse 6 and let's join Pastor Bill Lubkeman.

Bill Luebkemann: Ezra chapter 4 verse 6. You remember that the people have come back to the promised land and begun to rebuild the temple, but the locals didn't like it, the local yokel. They were unhappy. These were the people who were living in the land, mostly pagans, not Jewish. And they were unhappy. They came to the Jews and said, "Hey, let us build the temple with you because we worship your God also." The Jews said, "No, sorry guys, this is our deal and we'll have none of that." So then the local people began to do whatever they could to work against them.

In fact, in chapter 4 verse 2, we see let us build with you for we seek your God as you do and we have sacrificed to him since the days of SR Hadden, king of Assyria, who brought us here. But Zerubbabel and Jeshua and the rest of the heads of the father's 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 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 when the locals couldn't get involved, when they wouldn't let the locals join in the building, then the locals began to intimidate them and discourage them and frustrating them and hire people to work against them and to try to prevent them from doing this. Maybe they knew the building inspector, I said last week. Now look, after verse 5 here, it's a little confusing here, but after verse 5 really in chronological order, the next verse should be verse 24 and I'll explain why in a minute.

But if you read verses 4 and 5, 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. And we go down to verse 24. Thus the work of the house of God, which is at Jerusalem, ceased and it was discontinued until the second year of the reign of Darius, king of Persia. In other words, this intimidation that was going on, this frustration worked and it prevented them from rebuilding the temple at that point in time.

Now what begins in verse 6 here and goes to verse 23 is like a big parentheses because this talks about the reign of Assyrius, who was Xerxes, and the king after him was Artaxerxes and they actually came along much later in time. This is kind of a parenthetical thing. Remember we said if Ezra wrote this book, the first six chapters are history because Ezra doesn't come into the book until chapter 7 and that was many years later. That was like in the year of 450 something or 440 something BC. But these events happened 536 BC and or there abouts.

So this was maybe 80 to 90 years before the time of Ezra. He probably wasn't even born when these things happened. He wrote this as history and he was looking back on the history and he looked back to the reign of Cyrus. Cyrus was the one who allowed them to return to the land. And he looked back to the reign of Darius and Darius was the one who allowed them to keep building here and finish the temple. And Cyrus, you know, gave that degree to let them back into the land around 538 or so BC and in 536 is when they started building, but it wasn't until 520 under the reign of Darius that they continued building.

We're going to see that in chapter 5. But then it was around in the year maybe 490 or 480 or something that Artaxerxes came along and after him like in 460 was I'm sorry, Xerxes came along first and then Artaxerxes. And so these events between 6 and 23 happened much later. But the author who was writing it all as history inserted it here at this point most probably to show that this intimidation continued. It's kind of like, you know, while I'm on the topic of this intimidation, let me show you that it also continued later.

So it was going on in the year 536. It also went on many years later in the 400s. By the way, he tells us that's what we're going to read about here in 6 to 23 and then we're going to switch back to the year of 520 under the reign of Darius. Makes it a little bit confusing here to read this, but if you look at the order that these kings lived in, you can match it all up pretty easily. So in verse 6 he says, "In the reign of Ahasuerus, who was King Xerxes, in the beginning of his reign, they wrote an accusation against the inhabitants of Judah and Jerusalem.

In the days of Artaxerxes also, Bishlam, Mithredath, Tabeel and the rest of their companions wrote to Artaxerxes, king of Persia. And the letter was written in Aramaic script and translated into the Aramaic language. Rehum, the commander, and Shimshai, the scribe, wrote a letter against Jerusalem to King Artaxerxes in this fashion from Rehum, the commander, Shimshai, the scribe, and the rest of their companions, representatives of the Dinaites, the Apharsathchites, the Tarpelites, the people of Persia and Erech and Babylon and Shushan, the Dehavites, the Elamites and the rest of the nations whom the great and noble Osnappar took captive and settled in the cities of Samaria and the remainder beyond the river and so forth, which literally means and now and now this is a copy of the letter that they sent him to King Artaxerxes from your servants, the men of the region beyond the river and so forth again, which literally means and now." Kind of when when it says and so forth, it kind of doesn't make any sense under our own language here.

You know, what we see here is an account of people who simply wanted to destroy God's work. And they wanted to destroy God's chosen people. And they they were full of hatred and intolerance. And those things, hatred and intolerance of the Jewish nation knew no bounds and they passed it onto their children as well. And from the time of the captivity in Egypt even before these events right on through the many battles, right on up to the time of the Romans and even in modern times with Hitler and the continuing conflict that goes on today in the Middle East, there are those who want to destroy God's chosen people.

They've been around for a long time. Nothing really changes. They're persecuted because of who they are, not because of anything that that they ever did. And by the way, in a similar way, Christians are persecuted for their faith also just because of who they are. If you haven't been persecuted as a Christian, you will be or else perhaps you're not really living the life that honors the Lord. Second Timothy here chapter 3 verse 12 says this, "Yes, and all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution. If you desire to live a godly life here, the Bible doesn't say you might suffer persecution or, you know, two out of every 22 people will suffer it or, you know, if you're unlucky, you'll suffer it.

It says all. All. That means everyone. That means barring none, everybody will suffer persecution if you desire to live a godly life for Christ Jesus. The Jews, they've been persecuted longer than there's even been a church because they've been around longer. Churches are persecuted today, believers are persecuted, anyone doing anything for the Lord is persecuted. You can just assume it 's going to happen if you're walking with him. Now here in verse 6 we're dealing with Xerxes and then in verse 7 we're dealing with Artaxerxes, two kings that served successive terms there. And during the first half of this guy's reign, he was dealing with a major revolt in Egypt.

And so charges of sedition and people turning against him, he would have been concerned about that. He would have been concerned about does he have any turn coats? Does he have any spies among him? And these kind of charges here that these people are not going to serve you and they're not going to follow you and if if you let them rebuild their city here, they're going to not going to pay you taxes anymore. We're we're going to see they were grossly exaggerated, made up like kind of like what politics is today. And it says here the letter was written in the Aramaic script and translated into the Aramaic language.

So it was written in Aramaic and some means translated. This may refer to the fact that Artaxerxes had to have it translated for him to read it or may just have referred somehow to how it was written. It's not really clear what that means. But beginning here in these verses and going up to chapter 6 verse 18, this book, the original language is in Aramaic instead of Hebrew. And Aramaic was becoming the language of the day at this time. During the exiles, the Jews would have become bilingual. So it was maybe for consistency sake that they stuck this part in here in Aramaic and not in Hebrew.

And we see who it was from. It was from the commander and the scribe and the rest of the companions representing all these groups of people who were living in the land who didn't like the Jewish people and they were unhappy that the Jews were building this. And we're going to see just full of lies and mistruths and half truths, misconceptions. They write it to King Artaxerxes from your servants, the men of the region beyond the river. These are the guys who are writing the letter and these are the guys who don't like the Jews and they're mad that the Jews are there building their temple.

Let it be known to the king, verse 12 that the Jews who came up from you have come to us at Jerusalem and are building the rebellious and evil city and are finishing its walls and repairing the foundations. Let it now be known to the king that if this city is built and the walls completed, they will not pay tax, tribute or custom and the king's treasury will be diminished. Now because we receive support from the palace, it was not proper for us to see the king's dishonor. Therefore we have sent and informed the king that a search that search may be made in the book of the records of your fathers.

And you will find in the book of the records and know that this city is a rebellious city, harmful to kings and provinces and that they have incited sedition within the city in former times for which cause this city was destroyed. We informed the king that if this city is built, is rebuilt and its walls are completed, the result will be that you will have no dominion beyond the river. So look, they keep talking about the rebuilding of the city and remember this is because this was done later. The temple was already built at this point.

They were trying to build the rest of the city and put the wall back up. And this here back going back to verse 12 in general, it seems to refer to the Jews that came from Babylon over a period of time. Let it be known to the king that the Jews who came up from you have come to us in Jerusalem. The there would there were several times when Jews left Babylon to go up to Jerusalem. So the Jews living in Jerusalem now had immigrated in there over a period of time. And most likely it's referring to all of them, although it may have been they may have had in mind a particular group of them.

It's hard to say what specific events this letter is referring to since it's so full of spin so far out. We just know the Jews were working and they didn't like it. And they begin this spin here by talking about all these different kind of taxes. Let it be known to the king that if this city is built and the walls completed, they will not pay tax, tribute or custom. Three different types of taxes and the king's treasury will be diminished. This was pure conjecture, an unsupported, unsubstantiated allegation. Hey, if they if they're able to finish this city, they're not going to pay these taxes anymore.

They don't know that. They just made that up. Just conjecture. And they they're saying here and if that happens, king, you're you're not going to have the income that you're used to having. And like we said before, because there were many rebellions that the king had been fighting these kind of charges would concern him greatly. And notice how in 14 they be pretend to be on the king's side. Now because we receive support from the palace, it was not proper for us to see the king dishonor. Therefore we have sent and informed the king. In other words, because we like you so much and you help us, we we don't want to see any harm come to you.

The truth of the matter is more likely they would have stabbed the king in the back if they had the opportunity here, but they didn't like the Jews more than they didn't like the king. So they make this sound like they're on the king's side here. And they were aware that records were kept and they were aware that they could be researched even back to the Babylonian kings. They say a search may be made in the book of the records of your fathers and you will find in the book of the records and know that this city is rebellious city, harmful to kings and provinces and that they have incited sedition within the city in former times for which cause this city was destroyed.

Well, look, they knew that records were kept and they knew this could be looked up. But from a human perspective, the Babylonians beat the Jews and carried them away in the captivity. But the real reason they were carried away was God's judgment on Israel. God allowed it to happen, see? They they're they're not looking at this from the God's side of things. They're looking at it from a strictly human side of things. They say you going to find this city was rebellious and harmful. Well, they did have a big empire under Solomon, under David. You know, the empire was huge.

Under Solomon, taxes and tribute were coming in from all over the place. So they could have looked in their records and said, yeah, gee, yeah, we were all paying taxes to this guy back then. See, they took a little grain of truth and twisted it all around and said they incited sedition and that's why the city was destroyed. Again, a human point of view. Certainly the author of Ezra knew why, but these folks here doing the complaining, they they don't know the real reason why the city was corrupted, why it was allowed to be carried away into captivity.

And we informed the king in verse 16 that if this city is rebuilt and its walls are completed, the result will be that you will have no dominion beyond the river. Now how this little bedraggled, run down bunch of people could have caused any problem at all to the king is beyond me. It's it's amazing to me that this group of people that were up and down and had, you know, had their good days and their bad days and seemed to be discouraged a lot over the many year period that they were rebuilding the temple, the city and the wall.

It's interesting to me that these people could actually believe that the Jews would be able to incite some kind of major rebellion and cause this kind of problem. But they make this claim here. And the result will be you have no dominion beyond the river. The whole area beyond the river, the whole that whole region that this group of people here, these weary people that are rebuilding the city are really going to be able to do that. It is so full of exaggeration and misstatements of fact, it isn't funny. Maybe they were way more scared than they needed to be at least in the short haul.

Now the king searched the records. They did have records back then, probably better than some of our records today. The king said, I can't find records from last year. It's amazing that these people could find records from, you know, many years before. The king sent an answer to Rehum, the commander, to Shimshai, the scribe, to the rest of their companions who dwell in Samaria and to the remainder beyond the river, peace. And so forth, peace and now. The letter which you sent to us has been clearly read before me. And I gave the command and a search has been made and it was found that this city in former times has revolted against kings and rebellion and sedition have been fostered in it.

There have also been mighty kings over Jerusalem who have ruled over all the region beyond the river. And tax, tribute and custom were paid to them. Now give the command to make these men cease that this city may not be built until the command is given by me. Take heed now that you do not fail to do this. Why should damage increase to the hurt of the kings? It's interesting here that the same king who orders the work to stop is the same king Artaxerxes who's going to later permit Nehemiah to begin again, proving the point that there are always two sides to every story and one side always seems right until you hear the other side.

The first person to tell you their side of the story always sounds right until you hear, well, there is two sides. This king may have heard conflicting stories and, you know, given the right circumstances here, he might have seen things in a different light. He seems to allow for that possibility in verse 21. He says, give the command to make these men cease that this city may not be built. Look at this until the command is given by me. So he puts it on hold. Now we know from reading the book of Daniel, from reading the book of Esther that the laws of the Medes and the Persians could not be changed.

When they made a law, it could not be changed. In the book of Esther, when the king said on a certain day all the Jews are going to be destroyed, then when he found out that that was really a plot, he couldn't change the law. So he he sent out a new law that said on that same day the Jews will have the right to defend themselves. And they did and they survived. Can't change the law. Just think of all the things in America that have been changed over the years and what it would be like if laws couldn't be changed.

So it's good that he put this clause in the letter here. We see back in verse 17 and 18, look, they read in the letter and then in verse 19 and 20 they searched the records and they found the records of all these result revolt and of these powerful kings. Certainly David and Solomon, like we said, they were very powerful and there were others. And they did revolt against Babylon at the beginning of the captivity, not to mention that they conquered the land to begin with. So this king is nervous about this in light of everything going on.

He tells him to stop the work, give the command to make these men cease that this city may not be built until the command is given by me. And take heed now that you do not fail. In other words, get right on it. Why should damage increase to the hurt of the kings? Now when the copy of King Artaxerxes letter was read before Rehum, Shimshai, the scribe and their companions, they went up in haste to Jerusalem against the Jews and by force of arms made them cease. Josephus records that Israel's enemies wasted no time going up to Jerusalem with horses and troops, Josephus being a Jewish historian.

They may not only have stopped the work. It's possible they destroyed what was what was happening or what had been done so far. They have knocked down whatever has been done so far and they did it by force of arms. Thus the work of the house of God, which is at Jerusalem, ceased and it was discontinued until the second year of the reign of Darius, king of Persia. Well, like we said, this verse really follows verse 5. Verses 6 to 23 parenthetically inserted to show the motives of the other people of the land to show that these efforts continued.

So when Darius took over, there was a lot of rebellion and uncertainty in his time also. But within a short period of time, he consolidated his rule. He allowed them to resume building. So we have in verse 5 to verse 24 the construction of the temple stopping around the year 536 or so. Now as we get into chapter 5, they're going to resume the construction around the year 520, some 16 years later. These events concerning Xerxes and Artaxerxes really took place maybe another 40 or 50 or 60 years after that. So chapter 5 verse 1.

Then the prophet Haggai and Zechariah, the son of Iddo, prophets prophesied to the Jews who were in Judah and Jerusalem in the name of the God of Israel who was over them. So Zerubbabel, the son of Shealtiel and Jeshua, the son of Jozadak, rose up and began to build the house of God, which is in Jerusalem. And the prophets of God were there with them, helping them. Now remember, the work had been stopped for around 16 years. So they needed a word from the Lord to get this thing going again. The people of the land had stopped it because of the opposition back in chapter 4 where the people of the land hired counselors to frustrate the purposes.

And the work was hard and there was opposition to the work. So they set it down and they weren't doing it and they got they kind of got all wrapped up in their own affairs, sort of like living in America. There's a lot going on in our lives. You know, we'll we'll find time to worship God later. You know, we're too busy. We don't have the time to to do that. Our expenses are really high. You know, we can't afford to give the first fruits of our income to the Lord. We have so many other things to pay for.

We can't give back to him the first fruits. That was fine for the Bible times. These those people were wealthy living in tents, you know, off the land. They were wealthy. They could afford to give the first 10th of their income to the Lord. We can't do that anymore. And these prophets came along, Haggai and Zechariah, and they started prophesying against the people here to really to encourage them to get off their whatever and to resume working.

Guest (Male): You've been listening to Hope from the Word. We're currently in a study of Ezra. You can hear this message or more Hope from the Word with Pastor Bill Lubkeman by going to ccmarlton.org. Pastor Bill's messages can also be found by downloading the Hope FM app on your smartphone or tablet. Or if you prefer to listen via podcast, you can find Hope from the Word wherever you find your podcasts. We'd love to have you join us at Calvary Chapel of Marlton either in person or online. Our Sunday service begins at 10 a.m. And there's a Wednesday evening service at 7.

To catch us online, you can subscribe to our YouTube channel at Calvary Chapel of Marlton or just go to our website for the link at ccmarlton.org. And if you'd take a moment to write to Pastor Bill, it would be such a blessing to us. We're thankful each and every time we hear what God is doing in our listeners' lives and we want to pray for you too. Either email us through the website at ccmarlton.org or call 856 983 1662. We'll continue our study in Ezra next time on Hope from the Word with Pastor Bill Lubkeman, a presentation of Calvary Chapel of Marlton.