RISE AND BUILD
Ezra 1:1-3
“Now in the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, that the word of the LORD
by the mouth of Jeremiah might be fulfilled, the LORD stirred up the spirit of
Cyrus king of Persia, that he made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom,
and put it also in writing, saying,
2 Thus saith Cyrus king of Persia,
The LORD God of heaven hath given me all the kingdoms of the earth; and he hath
charged me to build him an house at Jerusalem, which is in Judah.
3 Who is there among you of all his
people? his God be with him, and let him go up to Jerusalem, which is in Judah,
and build the house of the LORD God of Israel, (he is the God,) which is in
Jerusalem.”
Jerusalem, the temple, the walls, and the
gates were in ruin; seventy years of captivity had passed leaving the people in
another world, and even another time. Jerusalem was now in the
past and could only be in their memories; these memories in some had faded into
the lives they had made for themselves.
Others had kept the memories fresh, and with that freshness may have
even created heartfelt thoughts that were above and beyond factual accounts of
the past. Too often we can exalt past
events above actual realty, and without even realizing it; nothing in the
present or the future can ever be good enough.
God never intended for the old and the new to be at odds or in
competition with each other; evolutionarily, God has chosen the two to complete
each other.
The homeland, the family, the God they once worshiped there is what made
them a holy people. Could it be that
they once again might dance in the fire of His presence? Could it be that they
once again might have His favor after they squandered the safety of His oversight
and loving strength? Rather they chose to live out their own conceptions of
peace and safety in the wealth they had made for themselves while they allowed many
of their own to be in poverty, even to the extent that those in poverty
resorted to cannibalism (Leviticus 26:29 ; 2
Kings 6:28-29).
Cyrus the king of Persia had given them the open door to return and the
means to get there; the Gentile king seem to have a greater vision for their
future than those who had lost their desire to return. The iniquities that brought them there
blinded the many that stayed as Babylon commerce and culture had become their
paradigm of existence and success; regardless of what it had been like in
Jerusalem before, to start all over again in a place of ruin was more than some
could handle.
Cyrus became the message to them that God can work outside the church to
accomplish His will as much as He can in the church; that in the societies we
exist in, God is at work for us when we have no heart left to work ourselves.
Moreover, if we are not careful we can become so familiar and at ease
with life as it is that we could never see what a better life could be. It is so true: “Hope deferred maketh the heart sick…” (Proverbs 13:12). To lose hope is one sure way to lose vision
or the ability to see how things can be in the loss of how things once were.
Ezra was a priest by birth and a direct descendant of Hilkiah, the high
priest as evidenced in Ezra
7:1; Hilkiah is who found a copy of the
Law during the reign of Josiah as evidenced in 2Chronicles 34:14. Though two generations had passed the destruction
of Jerusalem and the scattering of the Jews
throughout the Persian Empire; Ezra as his
great grandfather, wanted his people to discover the written Word once
again.
With both the city and the Temple destroyed Ezra was unable to do the
work of a priest, his primary destiny; nonetheless, the burning in his spirit
for his people to discover the Word in their hearts drove him to do the work of
a scribe, “For Ezra had set his heart to
study the law of the LORD, and to
do it, and to teach the statutes and ordinances in Israel. This is a copy of
the letter that King Artaxerxes gave to the priest Ezra, the scribe, a scholar
of the text of the commandments of the LORD
and his statutes for Israel:” (Ezra 7:10-11 NRSV).
“Some biblical historians seem to think that Ezra may have been the
writer of the historical books of 1 and 2
Chronicles and Psalm 119 (the longest chapter in the Bible). Furthermore, Ezra was responsible for
organizing the synagogue worship. He was
the founder of the order of scribes. He
helped settle the canon of Scripture and arranged the Psalms, which all lends
to the fact that the theme of the book of Ezra is The Word of the Lord. There
are ten direct references to God’s Word in this one little book, and the key to
this book is found in Ezra 9:4
and 10:3: “trembled at the words of the
God of Israel.”
[1]
“At the end of 2 Chronicles, we see that the southern kingdom of Judah
went into captivity for seventy years.
We do not hear a word from them after they were captured until Ezra
picks up their history. The book of Ezra
sets at the beginning of the three historical books that are called the
“post-captivity” books: Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther. The three prophetical “post-captivity” books
are Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi. (What
we mean by Post-captivity is that these books were written as they came out of
the Babylonian captivity).
In the Book of Ezra there are two major divisions. There is the return of the captives from Babylon led by Zerubbabel
in the first six chapters, of which, about fifty thousand returned. Then there is the return led by Ezra in
chapters 7-10, and about two thousand people followed Ezra.”[2]
No doubt Hilkiah greatly influenced Ezra to be the revivalist and
reformer that he was in his day and time.
His passion for the Word created the revival in the hearts of those who
made the decision to return; surely, the Word gave them the heart to rise and
build, to leave the Persian Empire and its
benefits to once again embrace their purpose as a family, to once again embrace
the Father of all, the Lord God Jehovah.
As Cyrus put it in his writing “…
(He is the God,) which is in Jerusalem
(Ezra 1:3).
Ezra begins his book putting an emphasis upon the Word of God;
specifically, the prophetic Word of both Jeremiah and Isaiah pre-captivity
prophets. One of the most profound
examples of prophetic Words being fulfilled is that of Cyrus the king of Persia. Almost two hundred years before Cyrus became
the king of Persia; Isaiah
prophesied of him in Isaiah 44:28
saying: “That saith of Cyrus, He is my
shepherd, and shall perform all my pleasure: even saying to Jerusalem, Thou shalt be built; and to the
temple, Thy foundation shall be laid.” Isaiah 45:1-3 continues this prophetic Word: “Thus
saith the LORD to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have holden, to
subdue nations before him; and I will loose the loins of kings, to open before
him the two leaved gates; and the gates shall not be shut; I will go before
thee, and make the crooked places straight: I will break in pieces the gates of
brass, and cut in sunder the bars of iron: And I will give thee the treasures
of darkness, and hidden riches of secret places, that thou mayest know that I,
the LORD, which call thee by thy name, am the God of Israel.”
“…The prophet Daniel served as a prime minister in the court of
Cyrus. It was during the reign of Cyrus
that Daniel gave some of his greatest prophecies, including the seventy weeks
prophecy concerning Israel.”[3] You see, as Daniel may have revealed to Cyrus
the prophecy made by Isaiah concerning him tendered his heart towards the heart
of God concerning Israel.
This is the importance of prophetic Word that is spoken. As the apostle Paul told Timothy in 1 Timothy 1:18: “This charge I commit unto thee, son Timothy, according to the
prophecies which went before on thee, that thou by them mightest war a good
warfare;” Cyrus was able to take the prophetic Word spoken concerning him
before he was born and see himself in the heart of God; see himself and his
destiny, and with that vision do the work that God had put him on this planet
to do.
“The counsel of the LORD standeth
for ever, the thoughts of his heart to all generations” (Psalm 33:11); “The
secret of Christianity is not asking Jesus into our heart; it is Jesus asking
us into His heart” (Jamie Zumwalt).[4] When it comes to missions God always has a
mission, and people are always apart of that mission He has in His heart. When we speak of missions in our world from a
Christian perspective we must understand that God’s mission can work outside of
the church as much as it can inside of the church.
Daniel as a missionary to Persia could see that in
Cyrus. Cyrus was a king outside of Israel;
nonetheless, God worked His mission through Cyrus politically and
relationally. This is the goal that we
as missionaries in our world must see.
“Cyrus recognized his kingship that covered his known world at the time
and said “The Lord God of heaven hath given
me all the kingdoms of the earth…”
He realized that God had given him his position. I wonder today how many of the rulers of this
world, in this so-called civilized age, recognize that they are ministers of
God fulfilling His heart to all generations.
We must also notice the expression, “The
Lord God of heaven” This is a designation of God which is peculiar to Ezra,
Nehemiah, and Daniel. You see, after the
fall of Jerusalem
and the destruction of Jerusalem God could no longer be identified with the
temple as the One who dwelt between the cherubim’s. The glory had departed; “Ichabod” was written
over the escutcheon of Israel. Ezekiel had the vision of the departure of
the Shekinah glory. For this reason in
the post-captivity books He is “The Lord of Heaven.”
When the Shekinah glory was removed from the earth, God gave His people
into the hands of the Gentiles and sent them into Babylonian captivity. He dissolved the theocracy of Israel
and became the God of heaven. He is
still that to His ancient people, and He will remain that until He returns to Jerusalem to establish His
throne again as the Lord of the whole earth.
Jerusalem
will then be the city of the great King, Jesus Christ.”[5]
In the first wave to Jerusalem they began
to rise and build; they got as far as rebuilding the foundation to the Temple. Interesting enough, they were so excited
about just getting the foundation rebuilt that they worshiped God with worship
and praise in singing as evidenced in Ezra 3:10-13,
“And when the builders laid the
foundation of the temple of the LORD, they set the priests in their apparel
with trumpets, and the Levites the sons of Asaph with cymbals, to praise the
LORD, after the ordinance of David king of Israel. And they sang together by course
in praising and giving thanks unto the LORD; because he is good, for his mercy
endureth for ever toward Israel.
And all the people shouted with a great shout, when they praised the LORD,
because the foundation of the house of the LORD was laid. But many of the
priests and Levites and chief of the fathers, who were ancient men, that had
seen the first house, when the foundation of this house was laid before their
eyes, wept with a loud voice; and 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 noise
was heard afar off”.
Notice, in conclusion of their worship and praise in singing, they
shouted with a great shout as a praise to God because the foundation of the
house of the Lord was laid. The shout
was so loud that the noise was heard afar off; even more specifically, in this
shout there were two groups of people or voices of people shouting. There was the ancient, (those who had seen
the Temple before it was destroyed, they
remembered it as it was before) and there was the younger generation (those who
were born and raised in the Persian Empire that never seen the Temple).
The shout of the ancient was mixed with tears of sorrow because to them
it could never be as it was; the shout of the younger generation was mixed with
tears of joy, they were overjoyed that they could be apart of a fresh and new
relationship with God as they have never known.
The scripture indicated that this shout was so loud between the two; the
difference between the two could not be distinguished.
As Zerubbabel the king and Jeshua the high priest, the chiefs of the
fathers of Israel
stood between the old and the new, (what was and that which was to come) they navigated
through the emotions of the two and built the foundation with the finished
product as their vision.
Anytime we stand between the old
and the new, not only do we have to deal with the emotions of what was; we too
have to face the fears of what the new will bring us. Beside these two emotions, they also encountered
some jealousy and envy from the people north of them. They offered to help (thinking their
involvement could give them an advantage in their reconstruction, their
intentions was evil against Israel).
These people were the Assyrians that Israel had formed allies with
before Jerusalem was besieged, and they were responsible in betraying Israel by
taking the Northern tribes captive: “But
Zerubbabel, and Jeshua, and the rest of the chief of the fathers of Israel,
said unto them, Ye have nothing to do with us to build an house unto our God;
but we ourselves together will build unto the LORD God of Israel, as king Cyrus
the king of Persia hath commanded us” (Ezra 4:3).
Only those who have lived out their faith along side us through both the
bitter and the sweet deserve to understand the vision that comes from God to
build. Too often we have those among us
that are not with us in our vision; they need to sit down and hush and watch us
build as God directs. Sometimes people
are not as friendly as they appear; if they are not willing to take the same
trip we took to get the vision in our hearts, they will eventually work against
us to fulfill the vision that God has given.
Working through the emotions of the old and the new can be resolved and
become as one in worship to our God; our tears can flow together in passion to
fulfill the vision till those looking on cannot tell the difference between the
two.
The new is as much of the old as the old is of the new. They may not be the same in the paradigm
shift, but in destination, they are one in and of the same. This is why the Old Testament is not complete
without the New Testament, and the New Testament cannot begin without the Old. They
both validate each other and rhetorically become the same piece of work. The Heilsgeschichte
(“holy history” being worked out as God’s plan in the midst of human
history as a whole[6]) plan of
God historically takes the old to and end to begin the new, and in that process
working the same plan of salvation in the two.
Therefore, taking a new direction when God is involved does not mean we
quit the old; it means, we complete the old and accomplish what could not be
accomplished in the old in and of itself, this is why Jesus said “Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a
corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it
bringeth forth much fruit” (John 12:24).
RISE AND BUILD
When everything has fallen and all
has come to ruin, things can never be as they were. As you look around nothing is the same; set
your heart on things to come Rise and Build
Rise and Build
Rise and Build
Set your heart on things to come Rise
and Build
As you stand between the Old and the
New
Set your heart on things to come Rise
and Build[7]
Ezra had a heart for the Word of the Lord in building the house of the
Lord, Nehemiah had a heart for restoration in ministry, and Esther had a heart
for intercession or interception; it takes these three to usher in the New that
is to come. Being built up in the Word of the Lord restores us for ministry and
intercession “…for such a time as this” (Esther
4:14). When we allow the Word to
position us for restoration; then naturally, our presence in the face of what
seems to be destruction becomes an interception of what (s)atan intended for
evil. Now this is truly the Heilsgeschichte plan of God lived out in
the life of the believer.
Once again, “Hope deferred maketh
the heart sick…” (Proverbs 13:12).
This only happens if we allow it; we as Ezra, can create a desire in the
face of deference by returning to the Word of the Lord, that we, the old and
the new together in one accord may worship the Lord of the Word “…but when the desire cometh, it is a tree
of life” (Proverbs 13:12). If we can
manage this, our ministries will be restored and we will become intercessors and
intercept what (s)atan desires to destroy.
Though it may be true that things can never be as they were; nonetheless,
with a burning desire, we must set our heart on things to come rise and build.
[1] J. Vernon McGee, “Thru The Bible Commentary Series / History
Of Israel,
Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther” (Nashville, Tennessee: Thomas Nelson Publishers, Inc.
1991). Introduction.
[2] Ibid.
[3] J. Vernon McGee, “Thru The Bible Commentary Series / History
Of Israel,
Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther” (Nashville, Tennessee: Thomas Nelson Publishers, Inc.
1991). Chapters 1 and 2
[4] John
Willis Zumwalt, “Passion for the Heart of God” (Choctaw, Oklahoma: HGM Publishing, 2000). Introduction xv.
[5] J. Vernon McGee, “Thru The Bible Commentary Series / History
Of Israel,
Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther” (Nashville, Tennessee: Thomas Nelson Publishers, Inc.
1991). 13-14.
[6] Donald
K. McKim, “Westminister Dictionary of Theological Terms” (Louisville, Kentucky:
Westminister John Knox Press, 1996).
126.
[7] Song
written by bo Robinson
