New Beginnings Series

Ezra is the story of a great revival. God takes a defeated and exiled people and moves dramatically to send them back to Jerusalem. They rebuild their demolished city. They rebuild the destroyed temple of God. At the end of all this rebuilding they experience revival of true religion.

Go back for a moment to 2 Chronicles 7:14

If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.

At Solomon’s dedication of the temple, he asks God, if people turn back to you, if they are in captivity and they really turn back to you (2 Chronicles 6:25), you will hear and restore them. This was in Solomon’s prayer and Jeremiah’s prophecy. Here we find recorded in the book of Ezra this became a reality four centuries later.

The Babylonians destroyed Solomon’s temple in Jerusalem. They pillaged the holy and precious gold articles from temple. They exiled the Hebrew people and made them live scattered in their kingdom. Jeremiah had prophesied that this invasion would bring about seventy years of captivity.

Ezra begins verse one at the end of these seventy years of captivity. The era of the Babylonian empire comes to a close. The Persians overtake the Babylonians. God used the pagan king Nebuchadnezzar to express wrath on his disobedient people.

Now in God’s grace he will use a Persian King to restore his people and rebuild the temple. The book of Ezra has two main characters, Zerubbabel and Ezra. Zerubbabel is a layman and leads the people in rebuilding the temple. He is the grandson of king Jehoiachin.

Ezra is a priest and a religious reformer. He does not even get mentioned in the book of Ezra until chapter 7. God is doing a new thing and an exciting work. But it does not come without difficulties. Rebuilding the temple falls into peril on almost every front.

The Lord is in this rebuilding. When the work gets completely stopped it is Haggai and Zechariah that rise up to get them restarted.

The “Hand of God” is a phrase used repeatedly in the book of Ezra. Unless the Lord builds the house the workman labor in vain, we read in Psalm 127:1. But it takes tremendous commitment and perseverance from God’s people for the temple to be rebuilt.

You will find that some of the challenges you face are like what God’s people face in building the second temple. The book of Ezra can challenge you to trust God despite the odds and to persevere when there is opposition.

Ezra 1:1

In the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, in order to fulfill the word of the LORD spoken by Jeremiah, the LORD moved the heart of Cyrus king of Persia to make a proclamation throughout his realm and to put it in writing:

The rebuilding is underway because God moves to begin the work. The King of Cyrus made a decree because God moved his heart. The king made this decree in the first year after he conquered Babylon in accordance with Jeremiah’s prophesies. The emphasis in the book of Ezra is that God is sovereign and works through the events of history.

God moved Jeremiah to prophesy.

Jeremiah 25:11-12

This whole country will become a desolate wasteland, and these nations will serve the king of Babylon seventy years. 12 “But when the seventy years are fulfilled, I will punish the king of Babylon and his nation, the land of the Babylonians, for their guilt,” declares the LORD, “and will make it desolate forever.

God raised up the Persians to defeat the Babylonians in his time and then God moved King Cyrus’s heart. After God’s people had been in captivity 70 years God leads Cyrus’s army to move his troops at his appointed time.

God moved Cyrus to make a decree. It was to be proclaimed far and wide. Heralds go throughout the kingdom claiming aloud the decree. This word to herald the news relates to our word for preach when we “herald” the good news.

Cyrus also put his proclamation in writing and that will prove valuable later. This written decree kept their rebuilding project alive later.

Cyrus states in his decree that the Lord God of heaven had given him political supremacy and had moved his heart to make the decree. He was not one of God’s community people, but he referred to him as God of heaven because the Jews did.

Ezra 1:2

“This is what Cyrus king of Persia says:

‘The LORD, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth and he has appointed me to build a temple for him at Jerusalem in Judah’.’’