Introduction
1. We’ve been on quite the roller coaster ride with the Tribes of Benjamin and Judah…
• They basically embarked on returning to their homeland…
• After 70 years of captivity..
• On their own.
• The other 10 tribes of Israel didn’t relish leaving the homes and the lives that they had built up during that 70 year captivity…
• They didn’t want to face that long journey…
• And the hard work of rebuilding the Temple…
• Rebuilding their city…
• And rebuilding their homes once they arrived back in Jerusalem.
• So the Tribes of Benjamin and Judah made the long hard journey…
• When they finally made it back to their homeland…
• They put first things first…
• They started in rebuilding the altar…
• And worshipping God.
• But, it wasn’t always easy…
• They faced challenges of many kinds…
• And ultimately, the church was stopped dead in its tracks…
• The people allowed the circumstances of life to interfere with the rebuilding effort…
• And, for 15 long years…
• They left the Temple to deteriorate…
• The weeds began to take over…
• Little critters began to make their home among the remnants of the building materials…
• And, by and large, the people didn’t seem to really care that the Temple was falling apart…
• They were so focused on building their own homes…
• Rebuilding their own lives…
• They got so busy…
• That the Temple…
• And the worship of God…
• Took a back seat to their own plans for their own comforts…
• Then, God sent 2 prophets to stir the people to action…
• Haggai and Zechariah laid it on pretty heavy…
• And the people really took it to heart…
• They responded to God’s message to the people…
• And they began to re-build the Temple once again…
• Of course, whenever the Church starts to grow…
• Whenever the Church starts to accomplish something of eternal value…
• There are those who will try to stop it…
• And, thankfully, as we saw last week in Ezra chapter 5…
• The peope didn’t allow the challenges to interfere with the building of the Temple…
• They didn’t give up..,.
• They decided to keep on keeping on…
• And that’s where we find God’s people as we come to Ezra Chapter 6.
Read Text: Ezra 6:1-22
Body
1. God will provide
A. As they continued working…
• a search was made of the government archives…
• And thankfully, after almost 20 years…
• They were able to find 1 lost paragraph…
• the one paragraph where Cyrus issued his decree…
• and the current king, Darius, embraced the decree…
• and allowed the work of God’s Temple to continue…
B. Not only that, but Darius told the governor of that region…
• a man by the name of Tattenai…
• that, not only was there to be no inference in the work…
• they actually had to help finance the work…
• In verse 8, we see that the financing of the work of rebuilding the Temple…
• Would come from the revenues of Trans-Euphrates…
• The very place where Tattenai was Governor!
C. The story is told about a Christian lady who lived next door to an atheist.
• Everyday, when the lady prayed, the atheist could hear her.
• Many times while she was praying,…
• he would go over to her house and harass her, saying
• "Lady, why do you pray all the time?
• Don’t you know there is no God?"
• But she kept right on praying.
• One day, she ran out of groceries and she didn’t have any money to go shopping…
• So, as was her custom, she began to pray to Lord
• explaining her situation…
• and thanking Him for what He was going to do.
• the atheist heard her praying and thought to himself…
• “I’ll show her."
• He went to the grocery store,…
• And bought a whole bunch of groceries,…
• Then he took them to her house,…
• dropped them off on the front door…
• rang the door bell…
• and then hid in the bushes to see what she would do.
• When she opened the door and saw the groceries,
• she began to give praise the Lord for providing her with groceries in answer to her prayer…
• Just then, the atheist jumped out of the bushes and said,…
• "You ol’ crazy lady, God didn’t buy you those groceries, I bought those groceries!"
• Well, she started jumping up and down…
• Shouting and praising God…
• When he finally got her to calm down…
• She said, "I knew the Lord would provide me with some groceries, but I didn’t know he was gonna make the devil pay for them!"
D. Well, that’s a funny story which illustrates pretty closely what happened in Ezra chapter 6…
• That tells me that God will honor obedience…
• The people listened to the words of the prophets…
• And they started rebuilding the Temple…
• THIS time, when the challenges came…
• They kept right on working…
• And not only that…
• But God provided the funding…
• By way of those opposed to His work!!
E. And today, God continues to provide just what is needed to build His Church!!!
2. In verse 14, we see that “They finished building the Temple according to the command of the God of Israel”…
A. I’ve said it several times throughout this series…
• But let me say it again…
• God will always build His Church!!!...
• God will find people who are willing to be used by Him to build His church…
• And, if there are some who aren’t willing…
• Then, as we saw in 1 Samuel 2:35 last Sunday Night…
• God will go elsewhere to raise up for Himself a faithful people…
B. I see a parallel between the building of the Temple in the book of Ezra…
• And the building of the Church today…
• And I certainly don’t mean the church BUILDING…
• I mean the CHURCH…
• The PEOPLE…
3. But, I also see a parallel between the building of the Temple…
A. And living the Christian life…
• We are on this journey through life…
• We are endeavoring to build THIS Temple…
• “Don’t you know that your body is a Temple of the Holy Spirit Who is in you?”
• Paul said that in 1 Corinthians 6:19
• We don’t want to leave our Temple to deteriorate from neglect and misuse…
• We want to continue the work of building THIS Temple…
• We want to be obedient in following God’s direction for the building of our Christian lives….
• For some of you…perhaps it’s a RE-building effort…
• At one time, you were serving the Lord…
• But, for whatever reason, you allowed the Temple to fall into disrepair…
• Perhaps through sin…
• Worshipping at the idols of pleasure and self…
• Perhaps through neglect…
• Neglect of God’s Word…
• Neglect of coming in to God’s House…
• Neglect of failing to worship Him…
• Paul says that “He Who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus” Philippians 1:6
• But we must allow the work to continue…
• We must allow God to continue working in our lives!
B. With this thought in mind…
• It gives us an interesting meaning to Ezra 6:14…
• “So the elders of the Jews continued to build and prosper under the preaching of Haggai the prophet and Zechariah”…
• It is my sincere desire that you will be able to continue to build and prosper under my preaching…
• I certainly don’t place myself on the same plane as Haggai and Zechariah…
• But I firmly believe that God has placed me here…
• And each week, I pray and seek God for His message for His people…
• And each week, with God’s help, I try to faithfully preach that message…
• And it is my hope that each week…
• You will be able to allow God to speak to you through His message…
• Preached by His messenger…
• All 3 parts must come together…
1. God must provide the message…
2. I must be faithful to preach what God lays on my heart…
3. You must be faithful to apply God’s message to your own heart…
• If all 3 of those parts come together…
• Then THIS Temple will be built…(the Temple of our bodies)…
• And THIS Temple will be built…(The Church)…
• And as a result, God’s Kingdom will be built!!!
4. After completing the work on the Temple…
A. “The people celebrated the dedication of the house of God with joy” verse 16
• There is certainly a time to build…
• And there is a time to celebrate…
• And in the final verses of Ezra chapter 6…
• You see that they celebrated with praise and thanksgiving and worshipping God!
B. It is interesting to note that in verse 17…
• They offered sacrifices…
• For the 12 Tribes of Israel…
• If you remember back to Ezra Chapter 1…
• You remember that ONLY the Tribes of Benjamin and Judah responded…
• They are the only ones who made the arduous journey…
• They are the ones who faced the pressure and the trials…
• They are the only ones to did the hard work of completing the building…
• In our human ways of thinking…
• We would be inclined to think that they would just enjoy the building all to themselves…
• But, we aren’t just talking about ANY house here…
• This is GOD’S house…
• It is for ALL God’s children…
• It is for all those who know the Lord…
• And it is for all those who don’t know the Lord…YET!!
• So it is with “our” (God’s) Church…
• Just like the government…
• We don’t discriminate based on race, sex, or national origin…
• As that song says that we all learned in Sunday School…
• “red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in His sight…
• Jesus loves the little children of the world”
• And it is our desire that we…
• Let’s call us the Tribe of Belleview…
• It is our desire that the Tribe of Belleview can reach out…
• Not just to those who helped to do the building…
• But to all who need the Lord!!!
Conclusion
1. Well, as I said earlier…
• It has been quite a roller coaster ride through the Book of Ezra…
• A lot has happened to the Tribes of Benjamin and Judah…
• And by application…to the Tribe of Belleview!!
2. But the ride is not over yet…
• There are still come interesting climbs and loop de loops that we face in the chapters ahead!...
• God has a powerful message for the Church contained in the pages of the Book of Ezra…
• And if we as the church will be obedient to following God’s message in the book of Ezra…
• We will see the church grow and flourish!!!
“Bless the Name of Jesus”
