Jexit - Judah Comes Home
Post Spiritual High Syndrome
Ezra 4:1-5
In your life, most of us, maybe not all of us, have gone through this experience is what I call the Post-Spiritual-High-Syndrome.
Ok … so this isn’t a technical description … but it is a legitimate experience
It happened to Elijah
In 1 Kings 18 in the strength of the Lord he takes on, and defeats, 950 prophets who were worshipping false gods. In a competition to see which God would answer the call to send down fire from fire from heaven and it burns a up a sacrifice.
If you don’t know the story read it later - 1 Kings 18.
All morning the 950 prophets call on the name of their “gods” … with no answer.
The Elijah gets them to pour water seven times over the alter. This is what happens.
36 At the time of sacrifice, the prophet Elijah stepped forward and prayed: “Lord, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Israel, let it be known today that you are God in Israel and that I am your servant and have done all these things at your command. 37 Answer me, Lord, answer me, so these people will know that you, Lord, are God, and that you are turning their hearts back again.”
38 Then the fire of the Lord fell and burned up the sacrifice, the wood, the stones and the soil, and also licked up the water in the trench.
39 When all the people saw this, they fell prostrate and cried, “The Lord—he is God! The Lord—he is God!”
1 Kings 18:36-39
Clearly what Elijah has just gone through would cause a spiritual high.
Then in the very next chapter Elijah flees after being threatened by Jezebel - one woman!
He is afraid of her.
Which says a lot about the type of person Jezebel was.
Elijah flees to the desert and prays “I have had enough Lord. Take my life. I am no better than my ancestors”. Later he says to the Lord I am the only faithful one left.
That there. That is Post-Spiritual-High-Syndrome.
Huge spiritual high
Followed by going through a spiritual low.
It happens a little bit to Peter
Peter is walking on the water out to Jesus on a windy night.
It is all going well … “I’m walking on the water”.
Then he feels the wind … just the wind … and all of the sudden he is panicking and distracted from his focus on Jesus.
Huge spiritual high
Followed by going through a spiritual low.
Post-Spiritual-High-Syndrome
We have these times. Some of us more regularly than others. Where we go through a time in our lives in our spiritual life when we have all these highs,
that draws us closer to God.
or makes us feel spiritual strong and secure.
perhaps we have a real sense of peace and God’s presence.
or we are really aware that God has been at work and His favour is on us.
days when our devotional life with the Lord is going so well
The spiritual high.
But then a day, or a week, or a month, or six months later. Well it all has changed.
Old sinful habits come back.
Temptations that we thought we had beaten get us again.
We feel distant … far … not close … to God.
Our spiritual life feels like a bit of a chore … or certainly it doesn’t seem to be as effective as it once was.
Do you understand the experience I am talking about?
That’s what I would call Post-Spiritual-High-Syndrome.
And it is a Syndrome that the returning exiles went through.
They are leaving the place of exile.
They are returning home.
God has moved the nations to make this possible.
God has named his people and called them for Himself for a very special purpose.
So they are on a spiritual high aren’t they.
After 70 years in exile they are home. They have even had representatives from the important families give a free-will offer for the building of the temple. It is an exciting time.
Let’s read about it in Ezra 3
Ezra 3:1-3
1 When the seventh month came and the Israelites had settled in their towns, the people assembled together as one in Jerusalem. 2 Then Joshua son of Jozadak and his fellow priests and Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel and his associates began to build the altar of the God of Israel to sacrifice burnt offerings on it, in accordance with what is written in the Law of Moses the man of God. 3 Despite their fear of the peoples around them, they built the altar on its foundation and sacrificed burnt offerings on it to the Lord, both the morning and evening sacrifices.
They get home and the first thing they do is focus on the alter and the sacrifices and making sure worship is a priority.
Ezra 3:6 says this happened “on the first day of the seventh month they began to offer burnt offerings to the Lord, though the foundation of the Lord’s temple had not yet been laid.” That date is June 538BC.
We continue to read Ezra 7-8.
7 Then they gave money to the masons and carpenters, and gave food and drink and olive oil to the people of Sidon and Tyre, so that they would bring cedar logs by sea from Lebanon to Joppa, as authorized by Cyrus king of Persia.
8 In the second month of the second year after their arrival at the house of God in Jerusalem, Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, Joshua son of Jozadak and the rest of the people (the priests and the Levites and all who had returned from the captivity to Jerusalem) began the work. They appointed Levites twenty years old and older to supervise the building of the house of the Lord.
This date is around August 536BC
It is great progress.
Sacrifices are taking place according to the law.
The beginnings of the temple are happening.
There is a huge celebration around this event. Admittedly it is a celebration of mixture of emotion. We read this in Ezra 3:11-13
11 With praise and thanksgiving they sang to the Lord:
“He is good;
his love toward Israel endures forever.”
And all the people gave a great shout of praise to the Lord, because the foundation of the house of the Lord was laid. 12 But many of the older priests and Levites and family heads, who had seen the former temple, wept aloud when they saw the foundation of this temple being laid, while many others shouted for joy.13 No one could distinguish the sound of the shouts of joy from the sound of weeping, because the people made so much noise. And the sound was heard far away.
When you have seen the greatness of the temple, and it now just a foundation, you can understand why the older members feel such sadness. But everyone is moving forward in one mind, for this is an important wok of the Lord.
There is this moment which is a spiritual high for all the Judahites.
But then we get a change in direction. Let’s read Ezra 4:1-5
1 When the enemies of Judah and Benjamin heard that the exiles were building a temple for the Lord, the God of Israel, 2 they came to Zerubbabel and to the heads of the families and said, “Let us help you build because, like you, we seek your God and have been sacrificing to him since the time of Esarhaddon king of Assyria, who brought us here.”
3 But Zerubbabel, Joshua and the rest of the heads of the families of Israel answered, “You have no part with us in building a temple to our God. We alone will build it for the Lord, the God of Israel, as King Cyrus, the king of Persia, commanded us.”
4 Then the peoples around them set out to discourage the people of Judah and make them afraid to go on building. 5 They bribed officials to work against them and frustrate their plans during the entire reign of Cyrus king of Persia and down to the reign of Darius king of Persia.
We might find the exclusive attitude of the returned exiles to be a little harsh.
After all, if our neighbours came to the church one day and said, “We want to help you build your church”, we would be … “great come and help us!” We would see it as an evangelistic opportunity and a good way to get to know the community.
Also, we are told in Ezra 3:7 that they people from Tyre and Sidon were helping. Admittedly they are being paid but they are foreigners who worship a different god.
So why not take up the offer of help? Why be so exclusive now? What is going on?
We need to put together a few facts.
Firstly we were not standing there seeing the faces of the people. We are not there in the conversation. We are only getting a report of the conversation. Obviously when Zerubbabel spoke with them he was a little suspicions of their motives.
Also, the offer to help comes with an unspoken condition … “If we help you build the temple then we have a say in how the building functions”. We will be raising a temple for the “gods” not for God. It isn’t said, but that is how it works in those days. Temples can have multiple uses, you just decide which god you are planning to worship when you go in. Basically they are saying “Let’s share this building because all our gods are the same anyway.”
So this isn’t being exclusive - this is being wise. They want to distract from the worship of God. Indeed Ezra calls the people enemies. They are a group of people who have come when Esarhaddon resettled people into the northern area - that is the area where the 10 tribes of Israel used to be. Which is a helpful description. Because, from elsewhere in Scripture, we know who these people are.
Go back to 2 Kings 17:24-33.
This is just after the 10 northern tribes of Israel has been taken into exile.
The king of Syria emptied the land … and then refilled.
24 The king of Assyria brought people from Babylon, Kuthah, Avva, Hamath and Sepharvaim and settled them in the towns of Samaria to replace the Israelites. They took over Samaria and lived in its towns. 25 When they first lived there, they did not worship the Lord; so he sent lions among them and they killed some of the people. 26 It was reported to the king of Assyria: “The people you deported and resettled in the towns of Samaria do not know what the god of that country requires. He has sent lions among them, which are killing them off, because the people do not know what he requires.”
27 Then the king of Assyria gave this order: “Have one of the priests you took captive from Samaria go back to live there and teach the people what the god of the land requires.” 28 So one of the priests who had been exiled from Samaria came to live in Bethel and taught them how to worship the Lord.
29 Nevertheless, each national group made its own gods in the several towns where they settled, and set them up in the shrines the people of Samaria had made at the high places. 30 The people from Babylon made Sukkoth Benoth, those from Kuthah made Nergal, and those from Hamath made Ashima; 31 the Avvites made Nibhaz and Tartak, and the Sepharvites burned their children in the fire as sacrifices to Adrammelek and Anammelek, the gods of Sepharvaim. 32 They worshiped the Lord, but they also appointed all sorts of their own people to officiate for them as priests in the shrines at the high places. 33 They worshiped the Lord, but they also served their own gods in accordance with the customs of the nations from which they had been brought.
Those people are forefathers of the people Ezra is talking to.
They say that they worship the true God of Israel … but they worship other gods as well … so in reality they do not really worship God.
What are we seeing here?
You can’t just pick and choose the God you worship.
You have to realize that there only one true God - only One.
People don’t like hearing the truth, do they. That there is only one way of salvation.
It happened back then. It happens just as much today.
When we speak the truth.
When we say that Jesus is the only way to salvation.
When we do this, the community doesn’t like what we say.
Who are we to make an exclusive claim on religion?
Who are we to say that we are right and everyone else is wrong?
That is how you make enemies.
That is how you end up with people standing against you.
The not-yet-believing community we are in will resist the claim of the truth. And they will want to water it down. And they will want to add alternate approaches. They will just want everyone to accept, and be accepting, of everyone else. And when that doesn’t happen they will want to stand against the purposes of God’s people.
That is exactly what happened to the returning exiles.
They understand the exclusiveness. Which is why the enemies frustrated the process … and the work stopped … all the way down to Darius the King of Persia.
Do you remember the date we gave earlier the one where the foundation of the temple is built? It was August 536BC. The second year of Darius is August 519BC
That is a 16 year gap.
For 16 years work on the temple stops.
For us 16 years ago was when we went from were in 2002. If you are old enough you remember that, don’t you. It was a while back, wasn’t it.
In 16 years you can do your 12 years of school, and also finish your first Bachelor Degree.
The work is happening.
Then there is a frustration against them.
Then they just stop.
The spiritual fervour is lost.
We are now in the post-spiritual-high season.
Nothing happens for 16 years.
So what are they doing.
I’ll come back to that question in a moment. But before we do let’s have another quick look at Ezra. Because if you have been reading ahead you would realise that Ezra in chapter 4 starts talking about something else.
There is still a frustration, but a different frustration issue.
In Ezra 4:6 we read, “At the beginning of the reign of Xerxes, they lodged an accusation against the people of Judah and Jerusalem.” So the issue of frustration begins in the reign of Xerxes.
Now keep reading Ezra 4:7, “7 And in the days of Artaxerxes king of Persia, Bishlam, Mithredath, Tabeel and the rest of his associates wrote a letter to Artaxerxes. The letter was written in Aramaic script and in the Aramaic language.”
The rest of the chapter tells us the letter.
So there are two kings mentioned … Xerxes and Artazerxes.
To see what is happening here is a list of dates of rule for the Persian Kings.
Persian Kings Period of Reign
Cyrus II "the Great" 550-529 BC
Cambyses II 529-522 BC
Darius I 521-486 BC
Xerxes I 486-465 BC
Artaxerxes I 464-424 BC
Darius II 423-405 BC
Artaxerxes II 404-359 BC
Artaxerxes III 359-338 BC
Arses 338-336 BC
Darius III 336-330 BC
This means that the kings which are spoken of in Ezra 4:6-23 are kings that reign after the rule of Darius. So it is a different time frame.
And the issue focussed on this letter is also a different issue. The letter is very specific.
Look at Ezra 4:12
12 The king should know that the people who came up to us from you have gone to Jerusalem and are rebuilding that rebellious and wicked city. They are restoring the walls and repairing the foundations.
Ezra has moved from talking about the rebuilding of the temple to the rebuilding of the wall.
I’ve pointed this out so we understand that the way ancients wrote history is not the same way we write history. Not just biblical historians, but historians from all the ancient nations.
You see, when it comes to documenting modern history. we are very precise. When you write history you address each date, one after the other. But ancient historians didn’t always do that. It wasn’t always a matter of chronology. They would also think in terms of related situations and themes.
And the theme in Ezra 4-6 is that the enemies in the land kept trying to frustrate the actions of the returned exiles. Ezra is focussing on patterns.
At one time the enemies hindered the work of the temple.
On another occasions they hindered the work of the rebuilding of the wall.
It is just one frustration after another. It is a historical fact that gives us an understanding of what the returning exiles faced all the time. FRUSTRATION.
These people keep opposing us.
Later in the series we will come back to this section of Ezra when we have a look at Nehemiah. Nehemiah is the one who rebuilds the wall … he will ask Artaxerxes I to let him do it.
So just for now see what is happening.
Ezra 4:6-23 is talking about the frustration of opposition to building the wall.
Then, after recording a couple of events that were frustrating Ezra 4:24 brings us back from the wall-building problems to the temple-building problems
And what is the result?
Thus the work on the house of God in Jerusalem came to a standstill until the second year of the reign of Darius king of Persia.
We need to see how the biblical history is recorded
It is not the way we perhaps would do it.
But that doesn’t make the history wrong or untrustworthy.
So let’s keep that in mind and come back to the original question.
For 16 years nothing happens.
A spiritual high, followed by frustration in their attempts to serve the Lord and live faithfully.
And for 16 years the temple stops being built.
What were they doing all that time?
Let’s turn over to Haggai 1:1-11
1 In the second year of King Darius, on the first day of the sixth month, the word of the Lord came through the prophet Haggai to Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua son of Jozadak, the high priest:
2 This is what the Lord Almighty says: “These people say, ‘The time has not yet come to rebuild the Lord’s house.’”
3 Then the word of the Lord came through the prophet Haggai: 4 “Is it a time for you yourselves to be living in your panelled houses, while this house remains a ruin?”
5 Now this is what the Lord Almighty says: “Give careful thought to your ways.6 You have planted much, but harvested little. You eat, but never have enough. You drink, but never have your fill. You put on clothes, but are not warm. You earn wages, only to put them in a purse with holes in it.”
7 This is what the Lord Almighty says: “Give careful thought to your ways. 8 Go up into the mountains and bring down timber and build my house, so that I may take pleasure in it and be honoured,” says the Lord. 9 “You expected much, but see, it turned out to be little. What you brought home, I blew away. Why?” declares the Lord Almighty. “Because of my house, which remains a ruin, while each of you is busy with your own house. 10 Therefore, because of you the heavens have withheld their dew and the earth its crops. 11 I called for a drought on the fields and the mountains, on the grain, the new wine, the olive oil and everything else the ground produces, on people and livestock, and on all the labour of your hands.”
What were they doing for 16 years?
They are building their own homes.
They are focussing on themselves.
For 16 years.
They were so excited. They were so focussed. They were spiritually strong.
Then they became frustrated.
And they allowed that frustration to become a distraction … a distraction from serving the Lord with their full focus.
They are happy to stand on the temple foundation offering sacrifices.
They are content to worship amidst the rubble of the temple.
And for 16 years they would go back to their own homes. Homes with walls and doors and roofs … and more … with panelling. The Lord’s house remains in ruins while the people have had the energy to build and decorate their own homes with much more than the bare necessities.
Frustration becomes a distraction.
I want you to think about your faith journey with Jesus for a moment.
When we come to faith, or when we have a renewed spiritual moment where we feel very close to God, we can wake up daily with a real sense of the closeness of God.
It is a wonderful place to be.
You are on a spiritual high.
Or maybe there has been a time in your life when there has been a renewed sense of vigour. Where you have come close to God and have this season of amazing peace.
A retreat
A reconnection.
Those spaces where you know God is at work.
You see the promises.
You who are burdened, come and find rest (Matt 11:28-29).
Nothing will separate us from the love of God (Rom 8:37-39).
I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me (Phil 4:13)
God did not give us a spirit of fear, but a spirit of power (2 Tim 1:7)
These promises, and so many more.
We hold onto
We go forward in them
But there is the part of the journey when we feel flat.
When we confront the challenges and face the post-spiritual-high moment.
If we claim to be without sin we deceive ourselves (1 Jn 1:8).
The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure (Jer 17:9)
If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also (Jn 15:20).
In this world you will have trouble (Jn 16:33).
I do not do what I want to do … no that which I do not want to do - this I do (Rom 7)
Spiritual high.
Followed by the low.
Post-Spiritual High Syndrome.
The challenges lead to frustration.
The frustration that leads to distraction.
The distraction that takes me away from serving God in full strength.
So, as we consider this historical event, here is the question we are being challenged with today.
Have I … have you … allowed the frustrations of life to distract me … to distract you … from fully serving the Lord?
There are all these outside influences.
The stuff that just happens in life because we live in a world where many hate Jesus.
The frustrations which come because evil intent is around us all the time.
Plans that have not gone according to schedule.
Relationships which are difficult because of selfishness.
Whatever that frustration is.
It could be outside influences.
Relationships which have suffered because of selfishness.
Plans that have just not worked out.
Hopes and dreams which are shattered.
People standing against you.
Whatever the frustration is … are you allowing it to distract you?
Are your eyes fixed on the frustration?
Or are your eyes fixed on Jesus?
It is an important questions … because a distracted life has consequences.
Remember Haggai 1:5-6 …
5 Now this is what the Lord Almighty says: “Give careful thought to your ways.6 You have planted much, but harvested little. You eat, but never have enough. You drink, but never have your fill. You put on clothes, but are not warm. You earn wages, only to put them in a purse with holes in it.”
You’re distracted, and so you are missing out on the full blessings of God.
God is looking after you … he always does.
But the blessings you could really be having are out of reach.
Not the blessings of more food and clothing.
But greater security, firmer hope, fuller peace.
Do you feel at the moment that your relationship with Jesus is lacking in a fuller joy, a fuller assurance, a sense of closeness.
Maybe you are distracted as a result of frustration.
Maybe you need to stop focussing on the frustration … and refocus back onto Jesus.
That’s how you defeat Post Spiritual High Syndrome.
Prayer
