Introduction
1. “I Give Up”…
• That’s a phrase that we use when all hope is gone…
• We throw up our hands…
• And we surrender…
• We give up…
• In boxing, they would “throw in the towel”…
• Meaning that their boxer has had enough…
• And he would fight no more…
• In warfare, one side might see that the battle is hopeless…
• And will run up the white flag of surrender…
2. In 1877
• Chief Joseph, leader of the Nez Perce Indians…
• Surrendered to the American Army…
• There was a movie made in 1975 about Chief Joseph and his battle to remain free…
• It was entitled, “I will fight no more forever”….
• As a teenager in the 70s, I remember this movie…
• The speech that he gave when he surrendered is filled with emotion…
• Let me read it to you:
I WILL FIGHT NO MORE FOREVER
(Surrender Speech)
by Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce
I am tired of fighting.
Our chiefs are killed.
Looking Glass is dead.
Toohulhulsote is dead.
The old men are all dead.
It is the young men who say no and yes.
He who led the young men is dead.
It is cold and we have no blankets.
The little children are freezing to death.
My people, some of them,
Have run away to the hills
And have no blankets, no food.
No one know where they are-
Perhaps they are freezing to death.
I want to have time to look for my children
And see how many of them I can find.
Maybe I shall find them among the dead.
Hear me, my chiefs, I am tired.
My heart is sad and sick.
From where the sun now stands
I will fight no more forever.
• Sometimes we face circumstances that seem insurmountable…
• And we feel that we have to just give up…
• It happens in life…
• And, as we saw in Ezra chapter 4, sometimes it happens in the church.
3. In Ezra Chapter 4, we saw how the enemies of God’s people tried different methods to stop the church from charging forward…
• They tried trickery…to infiltrate the church and defeat it from within…
• They tried intimidation and fear…which had some measure of success…
• And finally, they resorted to political pressure…which stopped the church dead in its tracks.
2. Now, in Ezra, chapter 5, we see that 15 years has elapsed…
• For 15 years, there was no work done on the church…
• But then, we see that God’s people take up the work once again…
Read Text: Ezra 5:1-17
Body
1. One might wonder, What did they do for those 15 years?
A. We don’t really see any reference to this in our text…
• But, if we look to the writings of the prophets mentioned in verse 1, we will get a glimpse…
• Haggai is especially clear and vocal…
• In Haggai 1:2-4, it says, “This is what the LORD Almighty says: "These people say, ’The time has not yet come for the LORD’s house to be built.’" Then the word of the LORD came through the prophet Haggai: 4 "Is it a time for you yourselves to be living in your paneled houses, while this house remains a ruin?"
• And then, in Haggai 1:9, the prophet says, “my house, which remains a ruin, while each of you is busy with his own house”
• Evidently, once the challenges arose to the building of the Temple…
• God’s people just dropped the work of building the Temple altogether…
• And instead, focused on their own homes.
B. And so, for 15 years…the work of the church was at a standstill…
• And, as a result, all the progress they had made in building the Temple…
• It began to deteriorate…
• Once you stop building something…
• And you stop keeping it up…
• It starts to deteriorate.
• Take a brand new car off the car lot…
• And park it out in the middle of a field and leave it…
• 15 years later…come back and see what it looks like…
• Dirty…rusty…flat tires…bugs and critters inside and out…
• A real mess!
C. Only for the tribes of Benjamin and Judah…
• It wasn’t a new car…
• It was their Temple…
• Their Church…
• Their place of worship…
• The place where they met God…
• At one time, they had been excited about building the Temple…
• Back in Ezra 3:3, we saw how, “despite their fear of the peoples around them, they built the altar” and began to worship the Lord…
• But in chapter 4, their excitement quickly waned under the pressure…
• And ultimately, the church…their Temple…lay in ruins.
D. But, the same can’t be said about their own homes…
• While the church was deteriorating…
• They threw themselves into making their homes beautiful…
• And, after awhile, it just became easier and easier to let the Church go…
2. So, what happened 15 years later thatgot them going once again?
A. Something happened to wake the people up…
• In verses 1 and 2 in our text, we see that Haggai and Zechariah began to prophesy to the people…
• I certainly encourage you to read the writings of these two prophets…
• The book of Haggai, is only 2 chapters long and can be read in 5 minutes or so.
• The Book of Zechariah is longer, 14 chapters long…
• But certainly worth digging in to.
B. God raised up two prophets to express His words and His will to the people…
• And evidently the prophesies were much more effective than the prophesies of Jeremiah from 100 years earlier…
• The people refused to listen to Jeremiah…
• And they ended up spending 70 years in captivity…
• And now, after 70 years of captivity…
• And after starting out strong building the Temple…
• They let it go and deteriorate…
• When Haggai and Zechariah began to tell the people what was on God’s heart…
• Thankfully, they were much more receptive this time…
• And in verse 2 of our text, we see that the prophets didn’t just prophesy…
• They actually joined in the work of building the Temple.
C. It is certainly good to see clergy and laity working together to build the church…
• And, of course, once the people get together and start re-building the church in earnest…
3. We see that opposition arises once again…
A. During these 15 years, we don’t have much information…
• We read from the pages of Scripture that they people were involved with making their homes and lives easier…
• At the expense of finishing the church…
• But we don’t read about much opposition…
B. It seems, by the absence of reading any opposition in the pages of Scripture during these 15 years……
• That there wasn’t any…
• In other words…whenever the Temple is being built…
• There is opposition…
• And whenever the people are not building the Temple…
• There is NO opposition.
C. The Church has experienced this same thing down through the years of history…
• All the way until today…
• As long as the church is ineffective…
• And quiet…
• And not growing…
• Not being built up…
• Not reaching out to others…
• The world doesn’t seem to mind…
• But, when the church is growing…
• When it is alive and on fire…
• That is when the opposition comes.
D. Tattenai and his associates went to the people who were re-building the Temple…
• and asked them, “who gave you the right to re-build this Temple?”…
• “What are your names?”
4. God’s people’s response to the opposition
A. And, instead of backing down or succumbing to their fear…
• They basically stood tall and told the truth…
• They said that they were serving God in re-building the Temple…
• They admitted that in the past, they had disobeyed God…
• But now, they were focused and committed to seeing it through…
• And, while Tattenai and company began the legal challenge…
• God’s people kept right on working…
• THIS TIME…they didn’t give up…
• THIS TIME…they didn’t surrender…
• Ezra 5:5 says, “they were not stopped”…
• Instead of bowing to political pressure this time…
• They decided to “keep on, keeping on”…
• They decided to keep building the Church.
Conclusion
1. I see this as a parallel for our church today…
• We can certainly allow our challenges to overcome us…
• So that the work of the church is stopped dead in its tracks…
• Like we talked about 2 week ago…
• Or, we can be like the Church in Ezra 5, we can “keep on, keeping on”…
2. You might be saying…”wait a minute,, Pastor…
• Our church is already built…
• There is no more building that needs done right now”…
• Sure, Haggai and Zechariah were talking about the Temple BUILDING…
• But it certainly is applicable to us today…
• Although we aren’t talking about the church BUILDING…
• We are talking about the CHURCH…
• About the people…
• We must work with Christ to build His Church!
3. I see a very interesting phrase in verse 16…
• God’s people were telling the Tattenai…
• “From that day to the present it has been under construction but is not yet finished.”
• And that certainly describes our church today…
• Yes, we have finished our church building…
• We have reached numerous people with the Gospel of Jesus Christ…
• But there are still more to reach…
• It is not yet finished…
• It is still under construction…
• So, for us as individuals…
• And for us as the church…
• We’ve got to “keep on, keeping on”…
• We must not “give up”…
• We must not “surrender”…
• We must not allow the church to come to a stop…
• Ezra 5:5 says, “The eye of their God was watching over the elders of the Jews, and they were not stopped”…
• God is watching over us…
• His eye is on the Church…
• His Church…
4. So, let us, just like in Ezra chapter 5…
• Work together…both clergy and laity…
• Let’s build His Church…
• Let’s not bow to the efforts of those who are opposed to the growth of the church…
• It is not yet finished…
• There is still work to be done…
• let’s commit to building His Church…
• let’s face the challenges and the opposition…
• and keep on keeping on.
