Presented to Swift Current Corps 29 August 2010
By Captain Michael Ramsay
We watched this wonderful video at Officer’s camp about counseling that I thought that I would share with you because I think it relates to the text that we are looking at today – John you’ve studied some different counseling theorists and techniques than I have in my training. Let me know if you have encountered something similar to this:[1]
2 Chronicles 36:15-17:
15 The LORD, the God of their fathers, sent word to them through his messengers again and again, because he had pity on his people and on his dwelling place. [He told them to stop it!] 16 But they mocked God's messengers, despised his words and scoffed at his prophets until the wrath of the LORD was aroused against his people and there was no remedy. [They wouldn’t stop it!]. 17 He brought up against them the king of the Babylonians, who killed their young men with the sword in the sanctuary, and spared neither young man nor young woman, old man or aged. [God stopped it for them!] God handed all of them over to Nebuchadnezzar.
God totally wipes out the nation-states of first Israel (which should have been a warning to the southern kingdom) and now -in our text today- Judah because, Verse 14: “ …all the leaders of the priests and the people became more and more unfaithful, following all the detestable practices of the nations and defiling the temple of the LORD, which he had consecrated in Jerusalem.”[2]
God told them to stop it. He sent them many prophets who foretold the events of our text today including Amos, Isaiah, and Jeremiah who is mentioned by name in Verse 12: “He [King Zedekiah of Judah] did evil in the eyes of the LORD his God and did not humble himself before Jeremiah the prophet, who spoke the word of the LORD.”
The country’s leader, Zedekiah -as we just read here- and the country’s religious leaders and the general population – as we read in Verse 12 – they did not humble themselves before God. God sent His prophets to tell them to stop it and they wouldn’t listen to Him. ‘They mocked God's messengers, despised his words and scoffed at his prophets’ (Verse 16). They believed that they could just keep on sinning and it wouldn’t matter. They believed that no matter what they did that they couldn’t lose their independence, their salvation, because God lived in their country, in their temple. They believed God chose them so no matter what they did, none of them would not lose their inheritance in the promised land (See TSA Doctrine 9)[3] and as a result of this false belief, ‘ …all the leaders of the priests and the people became more and more unfaithful…’ (Verse 14). Instead of being faithful to God, they put their faith in earthly powers (2 Chronicles 36:2-13), their election and their temple building – which they end up defiling anyway in their contempt for and rejection of the LORD.
They were very wrong to put their faith in people and symbols rather than God. Verses 15-16: 15 The LORD, the God of their fathers, sent word to them through his messengers again and again, … 16 But they mocked God's messengers, despised his words and scoffed at his prophets until the wrath of the LORD was aroused against his people and there was no remedy.
The people, the political, and the religious leaders - instead of following God - seemed by their actions to believe that because of who they were (the ‘chosen’ people) and where they lived (Jerusalem, God’s city) that they were safe and they believed that nothing could change that. They seemed to believe that it did not matter what they did since they controlled the land around God’s temple they seemed to believe that in that they controlled God or at least that He would protect his temple and that those who were put in charge of taking care of it – even if, verse 9, they themselves were even defiling the temple. God told them again and again through the prophets to stop it but they didn’t and so He stopped them, removing them from His temple which they defiled.
He is likewise telling us to stop it! In our society what have we been following instead of God? Some denominations and churches tell us that the fact that we have money shows that God approves of us. Nothing else matters if we have money. This prosperity heresy, which is very prevalent in North American culture says that the fact that you have money shows that you are doing well. That viewpoint is not a Christian one; it is a capitalist one: 'he who dies with the most toys wins'. There are also large denominations in North America that tell us that it doesn’t matter what we do, we all sin all the time so don’t worry about it – that stands in direct contrast to our text today. There are still other denominations in Canada that tell you that the Word of God is no longer relevant and it is just a guide book and there are people who tell you that everyone will ‘get into heaven’ as long as they are just nice and don’t kill anyone. These are a sampling of the contemporary teachings of people and an example of how, as verse 14 records, ‘ …all the leaders of the priests and the people became more and more unfaithful, following all the detestable practices of the nations’. Our country is becoming more and more unfaithful and quickly turning our back on the commitment of our nation's founders to ‘peace, order, and good government’ and Psalm 72 – the verse that our cultural identity in this country was founded upon. How far we have strayed: Now we can’t even read the Bible and pray in our schools! All across this country, we seem to be more and more, as it says in verse 16, mocking God’s message and His messengers. I think we would be very naïve to think that we will not suffer consequences just like the people of Judah did in our text for turning their back on a God who loves them. He also loves us.
How about each of us individually: Do we ever fall into that same trap of turning our back on God? Do we believe that if we don’t do anything: if we don’t serve God; if we don’t read our Bible and don't pray; if we don’t take care of the marginalized in society; do we believe that we will still be on His team and by extension experience His salvation (Cf. Matthew 7:15-21, 25:31ff; cf. Numbers 21:4-9, 2 Kings 18:4)? It is interesting in Greek the most common word for faith and faithfulness are the same (ek pisteōs). Our beliefs and our actions are necessarily linked. James puts it quite succinctly where he writes that faith without deeds is dead (James 2:17; see James 2:14-26). The Salvation Army’s ninth doctrine states ‘We believe that continuance in a state of salvation depends upon continued obedient faith in Christ.’
If we say we have faith in God but are not faithful than our actions prove our words to be a lie (cf. Matthew 7:15-21; 25:31ff.). It is then the righteous who will live by faith. And this faith is both, as the theologian James Dunn declares, “the initial act of receiving the gospel and the continuing process toward salvation.”[4] Faith is a result of righteousness (Romans 3:22; 4:5, 9,11,13; 9:30; 10:6) and righteousness is from God (Romans 3:22, 24; 10:3, 17; cf. 5:19; Psalm 72:11; Isaiah 46:13; Isaiah 61:10; Joel 2:23) for it is God who is righteous (Romans 3:5; cf. Psalm 35:24; 48:10; 50:6; 51:14; 65:5; 71:19; Isaiah 5:16) and it is His righteousness that enables us to be righteous, just as it is Christ’s faithfulness that enables us to live by faith. If we serve God then we will be faithful (Matthew 7:15-21). God is faithful. If, however, we reject the opportunity to faithfully serve God then we will not reap the benefits of faithfully serving Him. He has already won the war against sin and death. He has already secured our salvation. It is just our choice as to whether we want to experience it or not.
In our world today we know that even though the battle still rages, God has already won the war. Sin was defeated between the cross and the empty tomb. We know that the war is over and we are just waiting for our Lord to return and that it is only those of us that keep playing, those of us that keep pressing on towards the goal (Philippians 3:14; 1 Corinthians 9:24; Cf. Colossians 2:18); those of us who don’t give up; those of us who those of us who make it our goal to please God and Jesus who has already won the victory. If we stay with Christ we will claim the victory. But the sad thing is of course, some people do – like the political and religious leaders and the people of 2 Chronicles 36 here; and it seems like the leaders of and many people in this country and like some folks that each of us probably know and love here; the sad thing is many of them -it seems- will choose to reject God and die. This is sad. It grieves God’s heart.
But just when they are at their worst, just when everything seems to be lost, as the nation suffers the consequences of its sins (Romans 6:23), just after the chronicler in 2 Chronicles 36:1-21, retells the tragic story of the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the temple, and the exile of the people; in Verse 22, he tells us, as in Ezra 1:1 that God moves the heart of Cyrus[5] and God rebuilds His temple so that God’s people can go there to worship God again (cf. Isaiah 44:28; 45:1ff).[6]
This is exciting. Even when God’s chosen people choose to reject Him; even when they are faithless, God is faithful (Romans 3:3,4). Those that rejected God suffered the natural and logical consequences of their sin, they were deported and they even saw their holy temple destroyed. They rejected God’s offered salvation and so they didn’t experience it BUT God is still faithful and take a look at 2 Chronicles 36:23: ‘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. Anyone of his people among you—may the LORD his God be with him, and let him go up.' Even though the evil generation died in its sin, God offered another generation the same opportunity to worship Him in a Holy Temple dedicated to His Glory (see Ezra 1-6). God is faithful even when we are faithless. But for us to experience the joy of our salvation and His faithfulness – pertaining to our bad actions that come from rejecting Him – God, like Bob Newhart, says. ‘Stop it!’
God loves His people, He is faithful when we are faithless and He commissions King Cyrus to build a new temple. Now this new temple we know was eventually destroyed too as future generations -when it came to their bad faith and actions, refused to 'stop it' - and thus declined their salvation as well but God is still faithful even when we are faithless and an exciting thing happened when the final pre-Christian temple was destroyed in 70 CE, followers of our Lord never rebuilt it because God had already by then sent His only begotten son to live and die and rise again and to –himself- stand as the new temple of the new covenant. Through the death and resurrection of Jesus the purpose of the Temple has been fulfilled –And this is neat too: if we flip to Revelation 21, we will note that when all is said and done, at the end of the end, when Jesus does come back, when God recreates the heavens and the earth anew and when the New Jerusalem descends here to earth there is NO TEMPLE in it at all. We don’t need it. Christ now fulfills that roll: He is the new Temple.
Christ lived and died so that we may all be saved and all of us who – pertaining to our bad actions and rejection of Him – ‘Stop it!’ will indeed experience the paradice of worshipping God for always through the Temple of His risen Son, Jesus Christ.
Let us pray.
http://www.sheepspeak.com/
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[1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T1g3ENYxg9k
[2] Other reasons for their removal from the land include their contempt for Him, and their disrespect for the land (Leviticus 25:1-23), and the poor, the widow, the immigrant (Cf. Exodus 23:6,11, Leviticus 19:10,15, 23:22, 27:8, Deuteronomy 15:7, 15:11, 24:12-15, 1 Samuel 2:8, Psalms. 22:26, 34:6, 35:10, 82:3, Isaiah. 61:1, Ezekiel 16:49, 18:12, 22:29, Amos 2:7, 4:1, 5:11-12, 8:4-6, Zechariah 7:10.); and their disregard for His very important covenant (Cf. Genesis 12-17; Deuteronomy 4-26, 31; Leviticus 25:1-23; Jeremiah 52:4-27; Amos 3-4; Lamentations 4; Ezekiel 21,22; Joel 1-2:10). The people are removed from the land, just like the Lord told them they would be if they disregarded His covenant and they are removed for the period of time that God told them that they would be removed for disregarding His covenant (2 Chronicles 36:21; Jeremiah 25:11-12, 29:10). God told them that they would earn the loss their territorial inheritance if they continued to sin but they continued so they earned the wages of their sin (cf. Romans 6:23). They did. This was a traumatic time and it caused a lot of people to lose their faith and even their identity – the whole concept of the ‘missing tribes of Israel’ relates to the deportations starting with Assyria and some of these deportees’ descendants never did come back home. Cf. Donald E. Gowan, Amos. (NIB 7. Nashville, Tenn.: Abingdon Press, 1996), 347, 383. Cf. also Thomas E. McComiskey, The Expositor's Bible Commentary, Pradis CD-ROM:Amos/Introduction to Amos/Theological Values of Amos/The doctrine of election in Amos, Book Version: 4.0.2 and Edwin Yamauchi, The Expositor's Bible Commentary, Pradis CD-ROM: Ezra/Introduction to Ezra and Nehemiah/Background of Ezra and Nehemiah, Book Version: 4.0.2: Deportation began with Tiglath-pileser III, who attacked Damascus and Galilee in 732 (2 Kings 15:29), carrying off at least 13,520 people to Assyria (ANET, pp. 283-84).
[3] Salvation Army’s Doctrine 9: ‘We believe that continuance in a state of salvation depends upon continued obedient faith in Christ.’
[4] James D.G. Dunn, Romans 1-8 (WBC 38A: Word Books: Dallas, Texas, 1988), 21.
[5] Cf. Derek Kidner: Ezra and Nehemiah: An Introduction and Commentary. Downers Grove, IL : InterVarsity Press, 1979 (Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries 12), S. 36: According to Josephus, however (Ant. xi. 1), Cyrus had been shown the prophecy of Isaiah 44:28, which names him, and was eager to fulfil it. While this is not impossible, it has no corroboration; and Cyrus’s own inscription shows that any knowledge he may have had of the Lord was nominal at best. Isaiah 45:5f. insists that to know the Lord involves acknowledging no god beside him.
[6] Cf. ‘Cyrus Cylinder’ in Ancient Near Eastern Texts edited by J. B. Pritchard, 1955, page 316. Cf. also Derek Kidner,: Ezra and Nehemiah: An Introduction and Commentary. Downers Grove, IL : InterVarsity Press, 1979 (Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries 12), S. 16 for a discussion of the Persian leaders’ position on religious tolerance and diversity.
Showing posts with label August 2010. Show all posts
Showing posts with label August 2010. Show all posts
Friday, August 27, 2010
Saturday, August 21, 2010
Ezra 1:1-2 (2 Chronicles 36:22-23): You Can’t Go Home Again.
Presented to Swift Current Corps, 21 August 2010
by Captain Michael Ramsay
“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: ‘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.”
We are going to spend the next couple of weeks looking at the books of Ezra and Nehemiah. Did you know that some scholars consider that they are actually one book? Ezra-Nehemiah has two distinct sections pertaining to 1) the Temple (Ezra 1-6) and 2) Holiness (Ezra 7- Nehemiah 13)[1] and some people even lump them together with 2 Chronicles as one whole work – if you flip back to the last two verses of 2 Chronicles you will notice that Ezra begins – with overlap – right where 2 Chronicles leaves off.[2]
I used to be a teacher once upon a time. When I was going through my teacher training many years ago, we were always advised to establish prerequisite knowledge prior to commencing a unit. There are a number of ways to evaluate what people know about a subject; can anyone tell me what one of the easiest (for the teacher) and most effective ways to find out what people know about a subject? [a test]
I am going to give us an introductory test about Ezra and Nehemiah[3]
1) In what Testament are they contained: the NT or the OT?
2) Is E-N a part of the Pentateuch (the Law, the books of Moses), the Prophets, Wisdom, or History?
3) Who is the primary figure in the book of Ezra (esp. the last half)?
4) Who is the primary figure in the book of Nehemiah?
By the time of the events in the books of Ezra and Nehemiah (middle of the 4th Century BCE),
5) Persia was the foremost superpower of the day and they controlled Palestine, who was its leader recorded in Chapter 1 that we read from earlier? (You can look it up, verse 2)
6) Israel (721-721 BCE) and Judah (586 BCE) prior to the time of Ezra were conquered by the Assyrians and Babylonians respectively and many of their people were deported and the city of Jerusalem was totally destroyed (because of the people’s contempt for God among other things Chronicles 36:15-21; cf. 2 Kings 25:1-21 and Jeremiah 52:4-27; cf. also Leviticus 25:1-23, Amos 3-4).
6a) There are 2 key parts of Jerusalem that are being rebuilt in Ezra and Nehemiah: what is Zerubbabel, in the book of Ezra concerned with rebuilding? (hint: Ezra 1:2)
6b) Bonus marks: what is Nehemiah concerned with the rebuilding of…? There is a famous one now in China and one was torn down in Berlin near the end of last Century.
You can imagine this situation then with me if you can. God totally wipes out the nation-states of Israel and Judah because of their contempt for Him, and their disrespect for the land (Leviticus 25:1-23), and the poor, the widow, the immigrant (Cf. Exodus 23:6,11, Leviticus 19:10,15, 23:22, 27:8, Deuteronomy 15:7, 15:11, 24:12-15, 1 Samuel 2:8, Psalms. 22:26, 34:6, 35:10, 82:3, Isaiah. 61:1, Ezekiel 16:49, 18:12, 22:29, Amos 2:7, 4:1, 5:11-12, 8:4-6, Zechariah 7:10.); and their disregard for His very important covenant (Cf. Genesis 12-17; Deuteronomy 4-26, 31; Leviticus 25:1-23; Jeremiah 52:4-27; Amos 3-4; Lamentations 4; Ezekiel 21,22; Joel 1-2:10).[4] The people are removed from the land, just like the Lord told them they would be if they disregarded His covenant and they are removed for the period of time that God told them that they would be removed for disregarding His covenant (2 Chronicles 36:21; Jeremiah 25:11-12, 29:10). God told them that they would earn the loss their territorial inheritance if they continued to sin but they continued so they earned the wages of their sin (cf. Romans 6:23). They did. This was a traumatic time and it caused a lot of people to lose their faith and even their identity – the whole concept of the ‘missing tribes of Israel’ relates to the deportations starting with Assyria and some of these deportees’ descendants never did come back home (cf. Ezra 1:5).[5] This destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple that we are talking about today all happened about 70-100 years before the events of Ezra Chapter 1 (2 Chronicles 36:22-23). For the people who were heading ‘back’ to Jerusalem, which is through whose eyes Ezra is written, then it would be quite something.
In our own time, we remember the Berlin Wall (1961-1989). It was erected during the Cold War to separate the East Germans from the West Germans. It went up quite stealthily and as a result families were split apart and there was a lot of personal tragedy. The whole of Germany was actually split into two separate nations by their conquerors for much of the 20th Century (1949-1990) and I don’t know if you remember but when they were reunited there were a lot of difficulties because life had gone in those places. They had grown apart and all of a sudden were thrown back together. This is sort of what is happening in our text today but add to the mix a whole bunch of migrants.
I was just in Victoria, BC and they had a new batch of Tamil migrants in the news a lot there. Were they in the news here? A boat of people, who by the looks of things barely survived their trip all the way across the Pacific Ocean looking to be processed (as per international and Canadian law) as refugees show up in Canada and we promptly take the people and… throw them in prison. Some British Colombians are scared of the new arrivals (not without some reason, I suppose) and they are reacting.
The time of the books of Ezra and Nehemiah combines the sentiments of both these situations: German reunification and Tamil migrants. There are still people living in Palestine (probably with direct family ties to the exiles, like with East and West Germany) and now the superpower of the day has relocated 50 thousands of people who left Israel generations ago to Jerusalem. Can you imagine if thousands of people whose great grand parents lived in Saskatchewan all of a sudden showed up here to live in Swift Current? It would be the same thing. This would be quite a bit of a shock to both the people living in Palestine (the Samaritans, named after Samaria, the capital city of Israel) and those immigrating (the Jews). This is the setting of Chapter 1 of Ezra (and 2 Chronicles 36:22-23).
Can you imagine how things would have changed for the Jews returning to Israel? Susan, the girls and I just returned to Vancouver Island where we are from originally. My oldest two girls were very young when we left and, of course, our baby is returning to a home she’s never seen before (much like the people returning in our scripture today). Now we hadn’t been gone nearly as long as 70 years so there was a lot that is still the same in my old hometown. At nighttime when baby wouldn’t sleep, I would often drive around the city at night and reminisce, as I would see all the places that I used to live and work and play. It was neat for me. Of course baby was oblivious: it meant nothing to her necessarily.
I remember at some point my wife or my mother or someone sends me to the pharmacy to get something. I think this will be fun, I know all the back roads and the traffic lights, I think; I’ll see how quickly I can get there and if I can avoid stopping at any of the lights. Well, I am doing quite well. I am cruising along the shortcuts that I know and if I see a red light I just make a right turn and continue along my path. I still know my old hometown pretty well - I don’t think I needed to come to a complete stop even once in getting across that whole section of the city. I am making really good time. I get to almost where I am going in no time flat, turn the corner to where the parking lot is supposed to be and almost run head-first into a Wall – Mart. Apparently in the four years since our family last lived in Victoria, they have gone a built Canada’s biggest Wall-Mart directly in the path of where I want to go. I then spend the next 5-10 minutes navigating this maze of streets, box stores, skyscrapers, and apartment buildings that is brand new since I last lived there. I don’t recognize this area at all and this very strange neighbourhood that I have all of a sudden arrived in is the very same neighbourhood where we used to work and where I used to live when my oldest two daughters were born. Things have changed quite a bit in just a few years. What’s the old expression: ‘you can’t go home again.’
There was more that changed too: next to the house I grew up in there was a potato field where the neighbourhood kids would often work in the summer and where we would always cut through on our bikes when we wanted to head in that direction – its gone now. There was another field of blackberry bushes that we used to cut through at the end of the street when we wanted to head in another direction – can’t do that any more. My old high school - I can’t walk there any more because the field I used to cut through to get there is now a subdivision and what makes that even worse is that that field was the athletic field for my old elementary school which is no longer a school. Even though my old elementary school is right next to low income housing for young families, they decided to close it down and sell off all the land to developers. This same thing happened to a building I used to work as well – SJ Willis. They took the property and sold it (for $1, I believe to some developer). I left Victoria less than a decade ago but a lot has changed very quickly. When we were leaving town too, we went to stop by a park that was very special to Susan where she used to be able to go and play in the tidal pools by the ocean - but the access to the ocean there is now completely eliminated. Things change. I don’t know if any of you have grown up elsewhere and returned home to explore or not but things change. ‘You can’t go home again.’ Time makes the place different.
If there was anyone in the time of our text today who did live long enough to remember Israel before the exile, I can only imagine what their shock would be because remember their whole city was destroyed by the superpower of their day – the Babylonians. It would be like someone who lived in Hiroshima before the superpower of our day, the Americans, dropped the Atomic bomb on all the people there – if they were returning home now for the first time now (1945-2015 will be 70 years). Everything is different. This is sort of what it is like in Ezra Chapter 1 (and 2 Chronicles 36:22-23) – things change; you can’t really go home again. It is as if a whole boat full or a flotilla of boats full of 50 000 migrants of families who used to live in Hiroshima showed up on their shores with a letter from their rulers telling them to rebuild a Temple that used to be very important to everyone.
This Temple – this is the other key to understanding the book of Ezra and a key to understanding all of Judaism - before it was completed with Christ and the final Jewish temple was destroyed by the Romans in 70 CE. I don’t know if you know it or not but there have actually been 4 temples on this same site:
1) Solomon’s Temple (ca. 957-586 BCE),
2) The temple that is being built in Ezra (Zerabbubel’s Temple, 516-19 BCE; cf. Josephus, Antiquities xi. 4,6; xv. 11,1),[6]
3) Herod’s Temple (19 BCE-70 CE),
4) and by far the longest Temple, The Dome of the Rock (692-present), is unrelated to Christianity. It has been on this location for more than one thousand three hundred years. [7] The Dome of the Rock is that Muslim temple that is on the site today is as important to Muslims as the earlier ones were to first Israelites and then Judeans.[8] (NB: If you want to learn more about the Temple in pre-Christian Judaism and what it must have been like, you might want to look at the Muslim Temple worship - particularly in Mecca).
In our text today the only temple that the people had known here was the first one; Solomon’s Temple that was commissioned by God and it was quite something. From its completion and dedication this temple was thought of as where heaven and earth meet (cf. 2 Samuel 7; 1 Kings 5:3-5, 8:17; 1 Chronicles 22, 28:1-29:9; Joel 3:5). There were four things that were very important to God’s covenant people before His covenant was completed through the death and the resurrection of Christ. These were the non-negotiables:
1) Moses, the leader and Law-giver
2) Election, the fact that the Israelite people were chosen for a specific purpose: to share the gift of salvation with the world (Genesis 12:3)
3) Torah: the books of Moses, the first five books of the Old Testament.
4) The Temple
Solomon’s Temple, contracted by God, was an impressive structure. It took 7 ½ years to build (1Kings 6:1,18), and thousands of labourers to build it (1 Kings 5:16, 9:23; 2 Chronicles 25:18); the walls were made of hand-cut stone, the roof of cedar and the floor of cypress wood (1 Kings 6), inside was a giant molten sea of bronze (1 Kings 7:23-39; cf. 1 Kings 8:64, 2 Kings 6:14, 2 Chronicles 4:1, 15:20) and the whole interior of the building was overlaid with gold (1 Kings 6, 2 Chronicles 3:7-10). It’s estimated cost in today’s dollars to build is $174 billion USD. By comparison, the world’s tallest building today – the Burj Dubai only cost $800 million USD.[9] Even with all of this, what is most important was that Solomon’s Temple was thought by many to be where God lived so no matter how much the people disobeyed God; they thought He could never destroy Jerusalem and the holy Temple because He lived there. They were wrong. Like they say, you can’t go home again: God destroyed the Temple and God destroyed the City and God deported the people (2 Chronicles 36; cf. for ex. re: God’s providence Genesis 50:20; Isaiah. 10:5ff.; Acts 2:23, 3:17f., 4:27f., 13:27) and many people thus lost their faith in God.
Do we ever fall into that same trap? Do we ever forsake God to worship the Temples in our life? (Cf. Number 21:4-9, 2 Kings 18:4) Do we ever put our faith into things or people and then when they fail us, blame God. Do we ever try to go home again to a home that doesn’t exist? I know more than one person who has left the church because they were disillusioned by the sins of the Christians in it. I don’t know if you remember the 1980s but it seemed like every week then another famous US televangelist was falling from grace taking many innocent people with him and how about the sex abuse scandals that have rocked churches across this country? How many times have we or our loved ones put our faith in people (like televangelists or pastors) or institutions (like residential schools or churches) and lost our faith in God when people let us down. Lamenting our lives, cutting off our nose to spite our face, and bemoaning the fact that we can’t return home again because the Temples in our own life have been torn down.
This is what it was like between the last chapter of Chronicles and the first chapter of Ezra. It had gotten so bad that many people even elected not to return with the exiles at all – they turned their back on the city, they turned their back on the Temple and they turned their back hopefully not on God (Ezra 1:5; cf. Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews XI:1-3). Things change. The good old days of Temple worship are gone. You can’t go home again.
But just when they are at their worst, just when everything seems to be lost, just after the chronicler in 2 Chronicles 36:1-21, retells the tragic story of the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the temple, and the exile of the people, in Verse 22, he tells us, as we read today from Ezra 1:1 that God moves the heart of Cyrus[10] and God rebuilds His temple so that God’s people can go there to worship God (cf. Isaiah 44:28; 45:1ff).[11]
And in more recent history, when the final pre-Christian Temple was destroyed in the 1st Century CE, followers of our Lord never rebuilt it again because God sent his only begotten son to live and die and rise again and to –himself- stand as the new temple of the new covenant. Through the death and resurrection of Jesus the purpose of the Temple has been fulfilled – we can’t go home again to a time before our Lord, praise the Lord. And this is neat too: if we flip to Revelation 21, you will note that when all is said and done, at the end of the end, when Jesus does come back, when God creates the heavens and the earth anew and when the New Jerusalem descends here to earth there is NO TEMPLE in it. We don’t need it. Christ now fulfills that roll.
Likewise when the symbols we use to worship God, or the wonderful Christians we look to for leadership when they fall or when their time is completed, it doesn’t matter because Christ fulfills their roll too. He is our raison d’etre. He is our reason for living. He is our all in all. It is Christ and Christ alone.
Let us pray: Lord we thank you for all the symbols of worship that you have provided us with traditionally in the church. We thank you for all the people that have gone on before us. We thank you for the heroes of the faith that have run the good race. And Lord if there is any person – a pastor, an author, a spouse, a televangelist – or any tool of worship – communion, the mercy seat, the Sunday meeting – that we value more than you, that we worship instead of you, Lord please forgive us, and please tear down its distractions in our lives just like you tore down the temple and build us anew as new creations so that we may worship you and you alone.
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[1]Cf, Derek Kidner,: Ezra and Nehemiah: An Introduction and Commentary. Downers Grove, IL : InterVarsity Press, 1979 (Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries 12), S. 16. The second section can be further subdivided into Holiness and the Law (Ezra 7-10), Holiness and the Wall (Nehemiah 1-13).
[2] Cf. Sara Japhet, “The Supposed Common Authorship of Chronicles and Ezra-Nehemiah, Investigated Anew,” VT 18 (1968), 330-371. and Ralph W. Klein, “The Books of Ezra Nehemiah” (NIB III: Nashville, Tenn.: Abingdon, 1999), 663-664.
[3] 1) OT 2) History 3) Ezra (also Cyrus and Zerubbabel) 4) Nehemiah 5) Cyrus 6a) Temple 6b) Wall
[4] Cf. Donald E. Gowan, Amos. (NIB 7. Nashville, Tenn.: Abingdon Press, 1996), 347, 383. Cf. also Thomas E. McComiskey, The Expositor's Bible Commentary, Pradis CD-ROM:Amos/Introduction to Amos/Theological Values of Amos/The doctrine of election in Amos, Book Version: 4.0.2
[5] Edwin Yamauchi, The Expositor's Bible Commentary, Pradis CD-ROM: Ezra/Introduction to Ezra and Nehemiah/Background of Ezra and Nehemiah, Book Version: 4.0.2: Deportation began with Tiglath-pileser III, who attacked Damascus and Galilee in 732 (2 Kings 15:29), carrying off at least 13,520 people to Assyria (ANET, pp. 283-84).
[6] Cf. Hugh Claycombe, ‘Zerubbabel’s Temple’ in NIV Study Bible (Grand Rapids, Michigan, USA: Zondervan Publishing, 2002), 674.
[7] Cf. P. Alexander, ‘Temple’ in Lions Encyclopaedia of the Bible (Herts, UK: Lion Publishing, 1986).
[8] The Temple: Some people even believed that God lived in the Temple. because among other things the site that it is built on is believed by some to be the sight where Adam was created, where Abraham was willing to sacrifice Isaac, where the venerated ‘cornerstone’ is located (cf. Matthew 21:42, Mark 12:10, Luke 20:17), where the rock that Jacob slept on and the one that the Muslims believe Mohammed ascended from towards heaven. The Temple there today is very important to Muslims, just like the earlier temples were very important before the purpose of the temple was fulfilled in Christ (cf. Matthew 4:5-6, Mark 13:1, Acts 3:1-11). If you want to learn more about the Temple in pre-Christian Judaism and what it must have been like, we should probably look at the Muslim Temple worship (particularly in Mecca). As opposed to contemporary Judaism which has abandoned much of its historical beliefs and practices around the temple, the Muslims still have all the important animals sacrifices and similar rituals to that which the people of God were supposed to partake in prior to the advent of Christ. Christians have of course moved on. We know that through the death and resurrection of Jesus the purpose of the Temple has been fulfilled and that if we flip to Revelation 21, you will note that when God creates the heavens and the earth anew and when He makes the New Jerusalem there is NO TEMPLE in it. Christ fulfills that roll.
[9] ‘The Temple’ in The Masonic Trowel. Available on-line at http://www.themasonictrowel.com/
[10] Cf. Derek Kidner: Ezra and Nehemiah: An Introduction and Commentary. Downers Grove, IL : InterVarsity Press, 1979 (Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries 12), S. 36: According to Josephus, however (Ant. xi. 1), Cyrus had been shown the prophecy of Isaiah 44:28, which names him, and was eager to fulfil it. While this is not impossible, it has no corroboration; and Cyrus’s own inscription shows that any knowledge he may have had of the Lord was nominal at best. Isaiah 45:5f. insists that to know the Lord involves acknowledging no god beside him.
[11] Cf. ‘Cyrus Cylinder’ in Ancient Near Eastern Texts edited by J. B. Pritchard, 1955, page 316. Cf. also Derek Kidner,: Ezra and Nehemiah: An Introduction and Commentary. Downers Grove, IL : InterVarsity Press, 1979 (Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries 12), S. 16 for a discussion of the Persian leaders’ position on religious tolerance and diversity.
by Captain Michael Ramsay
“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: ‘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.”
We are going to spend the next couple of weeks looking at the books of Ezra and Nehemiah. Did you know that some scholars consider that they are actually one book? Ezra-Nehemiah has two distinct sections pertaining to 1) the Temple (Ezra 1-6) and 2) Holiness (Ezra 7- Nehemiah 13)[1] and some people even lump them together with 2 Chronicles as one whole work – if you flip back to the last two verses of 2 Chronicles you will notice that Ezra begins – with overlap – right where 2 Chronicles leaves off.[2]
I used to be a teacher once upon a time. When I was going through my teacher training many years ago, we were always advised to establish prerequisite knowledge prior to commencing a unit. There are a number of ways to evaluate what people know about a subject; can anyone tell me what one of the easiest (for the teacher) and most effective ways to find out what people know about a subject? [a test]
I am going to give us an introductory test about Ezra and Nehemiah[3]
1) In what Testament are they contained: the NT or the OT?
2) Is E-N a part of the Pentateuch (the Law, the books of Moses), the Prophets, Wisdom, or History?
3) Who is the primary figure in the book of Ezra (esp. the last half)?
4) Who is the primary figure in the book of Nehemiah?
By the time of the events in the books of Ezra and Nehemiah (middle of the 4th Century BCE),
5) Persia was the foremost superpower of the day and they controlled Palestine, who was its leader recorded in Chapter 1 that we read from earlier? (You can look it up, verse 2)
6) Israel (721-721 BCE) and Judah (586 BCE) prior to the time of Ezra were conquered by the Assyrians and Babylonians respectively and many of their people were deported and the city of Jerusalem was totally destroyed (because of the people’s contempt for God among other things Chronicles 36:15-21; cf. 2 Kings 25:1-21 and Jeremiah 52:4-27; cf. also Leviticus 25:1-23, Amos 3-4).
6a) There are 2 key parts of Jerusalem that are being rebuilt in Ezra and Nehemiah: what is Zerubbabel, in the book of Ezra concerned with rebuilding? (hint: Ezra 1:2)
6b) Bonus marks: what is Nehemiah concerned with the rebuilding of…? There is a famous one now in China and one was torn down in Berlin near the end of last Century.
You can imagine this situation then with me if you can. God totally wipes out the nation-states of Israel and Judah because of their contempt for Him, and their disrespect for the land (Leviticus 25:1-23), and the poor, the widow, the immigrant (Cf. Exodus 23:6,11, Leviticus 19:10,15, 23:22, 27:8, Deuteronomy 15:7, 15:11, 24:12-15, 1 Samuel 2:8, Psalms. 22:26, 34:6, 35:10, 82:3, Isaiah. 61:1, Ezekiel 16:49, 18:12, 22:29, Amos 2:7, 4:1, 5:11-12, 8:4-6, Zechariah 7:10.); and their disregard for His very important covenant (Cf. Genesis 12-17; Deuteronomy 4-26, 31; Leviticus 25:1-23; Jeremiah 52:4-27; Amos 3-4; Lamentations 4; Ezekiel 21,22; Joel 1-2:10).[4] The people are removed from the land, just like the Lord told them they would be if they disregarded His covenant and they are removed for the period of time that God told them that they would be removed for disregarding His covenant (2 Chronicles 36:21; Jeremiah 25:11-12, 29:10). God told them that they would earn the loss their territorial inheritance if they continued to sin but they continued so they earned the wages of their sin (cf. Romans 6:23). They did. This was a traumatic time and it caused a lot of people to lose their faith and even their identity – the whole concept of the ‘missing tribes of Israel’ relates to the deportations starting with Assyria and some of these deportees’ descendants never did come back home (cf. Ezra 1:5).[5] This destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple that we are talking about today all happened about 70-100 years before the events of Ezra Chapter 1 (2 Chronicles 36:22-23). For the people who were heading ‘back’ to Jerusalem, which is through whose eyes Ezra is written, then it would be quite something.
In our own time, we remember the Berlin Wall (1961-1989). It was erected during the Cold War to separate the East Germans from the West Germans. It went up quite stealthily and as a result families were split apart and there was a lot of personal tragedy. The whole of Germany was actually split into two separate nations by their conquerors for much of the 20th Century (1949-1990) and I don’t know if you remember but when they were reunited there were a lot of difficulties because life had gone in those places. They had grown apart and all of a sudden were thrown back together. This is sort of what is happening in our text today but add to the mix a whole bunch of migrants.
I was just in Victoria, BC and they had a new batch of Tamil migrants in the news a lot there. Were they in the news here? A boat of people, who by the looks of things barely survived their trip all the way across the Pacific Ocean looking to be processed (as per international and Canadian law) as refugees show up in Canada and we promptly take the people and… throw them in prison. Some British Colombians are scared of the new arrivals (not without some reason, I suppose) and they are reacting.
The time of the books of Ezra and Nehemiah combines the sentiments of both these situations: German reunification and Tamil migrants. There are still people living in Palestine (probably with direct family ties to the exiles, like with East and West Germany) and now the superpower of the day has relocated 50 thousands of people who left Israel generations ago to Jerusalem. Can you imagine if thousands of people whose great grand parents lived in Saskatchewan all of a sudden showed up here to live in Swift Current? It would be the same thing. This would be quite a bit of a shock to both the people living in Palestine (the Samaritans, named after Samaria, the capital city of Israel) and those immigrating (the Jews). This is the setting of Chapter 1 of Ezra (and 2 Chronicles 36:22-23).
Can you imagine how things would have changed for the Jews returning to Israel? Susan, the girls and I just returned to Vancouver Island where we are from originally. My oldest two girls were very young when we left and, of course, our baby is returning to a home she’s never seen before (much like the people returning in our scripture today). Now we hadn’t been gone nearly as long as 70 years so there was a lot that is still the same in my old hometown. At nighttime when baby wouldn’t sleep, I would often drive around the city at night and reminisce, as I would see all the places that I used to live and work and play. It was neat for me. Of course baby was oblivious: it meant nothing to her necessarily.
I remember at some point my wife or my mother or someone sends me to the pharmacy to get something. I think this will be fun, I know all the back roads and the traffic lights, I think; I’ll see how quickly I can get there and if I can avoid stopping at any of the lights. Well, I am doing quite well. I am cruising along the shortcuts that I know and if I see a red light I just make a right turn and continue along my path. I still know my old hometown pretty well - I don’t think I needed to come to a complete stop even once in getting across that whole section of the city. I am making really good time. I get to almost where I am going in no time flat, turn the corner to where the parking lot is supposed to be and almost run head-first into a Wall – Mart. Apparently in the four years since our family last lived in Victoria, they have gone a built Canada’s biggest Wall-Mart directly in the path of where I want to go. I then spend the next 5-10 minutes navigating this maze of streets, box stores, skyscrapers, and apartment buildings that is brand new since I last lived there. I don’t recognize this area at all and this very strange neighbourhood that I have all of a sudden arrived in is the very same neighbourhood where we used to work and where I used to live when my oldest two daughters were born. Things have changed quite a bit in just a few years. What’s the old expression: ‘you can’t go home again.’
There was more that changed too: next to the house I grew up in there was a potato field where the neighbourhood kids would often work in the summer and where we would always cut through on our bikes when we wanted to head in that direction – its gone now. There was another field of blackberry bushes that we used to cut through at the end of the street when we wanted to head in another direction – can’t do that any more. My old high school - I can’t walk there any more because the field I used to cut through to get there is now a subdivision and what makes that even worse is that that field was the athletic field for my old elementary school which is no longer a school. Even though my old elementary school is right next to low income housing for young families, they decided to close it down and sell off all the land to developers. This same thing happened to a building I used to work as well – SJ Willis. They took the property and sold it (for $1, I believe to some developer). I left Victoria less than a decade ago but a lot has changed very quickly. When we were leaving town too, we went to stop by a park that was very special to Susan where she used to be able to go and play in the tidal pools by the ocean - but the access to the ocean there is now completely eliminated. Things change. I don’t know if any of you have grown up elsewhere and returned home to explore or not but things change. ‘You can’t go home again.’ Time makes the place different.
If there was anyone in the time of our text today who did live long enough to remember Israel before the exile, I can only imagine what their shock would be because remember their whole city was destroyed by the superpower of their day – the Babylonians. It would be like someone who lived in Hiroshima before the superpower of our day, the Americans, dropped the Atomic bomb on all the people there – if they were returning home now for the first time now (1945-2015 will be 70 years). Everything is different. This is sort of what it is like in Ezra Chapter 1 (and 2 Chronicles 36:22-23) – things change; you can’t really go home again. It is as if a whole boat full or a flotilla of boats full of 50 000 migrants of families who used to live in Hiroshima showed up on their shores with a letter from their rulers telling them to rebuild a Temple that used to be very important to everyone.
This Temple – this is the other key to understanding the book of Ezra and a key to understanding all of Judaism - before it was completed with Christ and the final Jewish temple was destroyed by the Romans in 70 CE. I don’t know if you know it or not but there have actually been 4 temples on this same site:
1) Solomon’s Temple (ca. 957-586 BCE),
2) The temple that is being built in Ezra (Zerabbubel’s Temple, 516-19 BCE; cf. Josephus, Antiquities xi. 4,6; xv. 11,1),[6]
3) Herod’s Temple (19 BCE-70 CE),
4) and by far the longest Temple, The Dome of the Rock (692-present), is unrelated to Christianity. It has been on this location for more than one thousand three hundred years. [7] The Dome of the Rock is that Muslim temple that is on the site today is as important to Muslims as the earlier ones were to first Israelites and then Judeans.[8] (NB: If you want to learn more about the Temple in pre-Christian Judaism and what it must have been like, you might want to look at the Muslim Temple worship - particularly in Mecca).
In our text today the only temple that the people had known here was the first one; Solomon’s Temple that was commissioned by God and it was quite something. From its completion and dedication this temple was thought of as where heaven and earth meet (cf. 2 Samuel 7; 1 Kings 5:3-5, 8:17; 1 Chronicles 22, 28:1-29:9; Joel 3:5). There were four things that were very important to God’s covenant people before His covenant was completed through the death and the resurrection of Christ. These were the non-negotiables:
1) Moses, the leader and Law-giver
2) Election, the fact that the Israelite people were chosen for a specific purpose: to share the gift of salvation with the world (Genesis 12:3)
3) Torah: the books of Moses, the first five books of the Old Testament.
4) The Temple
Solomon’s Temple, contracted by God, was an impressive structure. It took 7 ½ years to build (1Kings 6:1,18), and thousands of labourers to build it (1 Kings 5:16, 9:23; 2 Chronicles 25:18); the walls were made of hand-cut stone, the roof of cedar and the floor of cypress wood (1 Kings 6), inside was a giant molten sea of bronze (1 Kings 7:23-39; cf. 1 Kings 8:64, 2 Kings 6:14, 2 Chronicles 4:1, 15:20) and the whole interior of the building was overlaid with gold (1 Kings 6, 2 Chronicles 3:7-10). It’s estimated cost in today’s dollars to build is $174 billion USD. By comparison, the world’s tallest building today – the Burj Dubai only cost $800 million USD.[9] Even with all of this, what is most important was that Solomon’s Temple was thought by many to be where God lived so no matter how much the people disobeyed God; they thought He could never destroy Jerusalem and the holy Temple because He lived there. They were wrong. Like they say, you can’t go home again: God destroyed the Temple and God destroyed the City and God deported the people (2 Chronicles 36; cf. for ex. re: God’s providence Genesis 50:20; Isaiah. 10:5ff.; Acts 2:23, 3:17f., 4:27f., 13:27) and many people thus lost their faith in God.
Do we ever fall into that same trap? Do we ever forsake God to worship the Temples in our life? (Cf. Number 21:4-9, 2 Kings 18:4) Do we ever put our faith into things or people and then when they fail us, blame God. Do we ever try to go home again to a home that doesn’t exist? I know more than one person who has left the church because they were disillusioned by the sins of the Christians in it. I don’t know if you remember the 1980s but it seemed like every week then another famous US televangelist was falling from grace taking many innocent people with him and how about the sex abuse scandals that have rocked churches across this country? How many times have we or our loved ones put our faith in people (like televangelists or pastors) or institutions (like residential schools or churches) and lost our faith in God when people let us down. Lamenting our lives, cutting off our nose to spite our face, and bemoaning the fact that we can’t return home again because the Temples in our own life have been torn down.
This is what it was like between the last chapter of Chronicles and the first chapter of Ezra. It had gotten so bad that many people even elected not to return with the exiles at all – they turned their back on the city, they turned their back on the Temple and they turned their back hopefully not on God (Ezra 1:5; cf. Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews XI:1-3). Things change. The good old days of Temple worship are gone. You can’t go home again.
But just when they are at their worst, just when everything seems to be lost, just after the chronicler in 2 Chronicles 36:1-21, retells the tragic story of the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the temple, and the exile of the people, in Verse 22, he tells us, as we read today from Ezra 1:1 that God moves the heart of Cyrus[10] and God rebuilds His temple so that God’s people can go there to worship God (cf. Isaiah 44:28; 45:1ff).[11]
And in more recent history, when the final pre-Christian Temple was destroyed in the 1st Century CE, followers of our Lord never rebuilt it again because God sent his only begotten son to live and die and rise again and to –himself- stand as the new temple of the new covenant. Through the death and resurrection of Jesus the purpose of the Temple has been fulfilled – we can’t go home again to a time before our Lord, praise the Lord. And this is neat too: if we flip to Revelation 21, you will note that when all is said and done, at the end of the end, when Jesus does come back, when God creates the heavens and the earth anew and when the New Jerusalem descends here to earth there is NO TEMPLE in it. We don’t need it. Christ now fulfills that roll.
Likewise when the symbols we use to worship God, or the wonderful Christians we look to for leadership when they fall or when their time is completed, it doesn’t matter because Christ fulfills their roll too. He is our raison d’etre. He is our reason for living. He is our all in all. It is Christ and Christ alone.
Let us pray: Lord we thank you for all the symbols of worship that you have provided us with traditionally in the church. We thank you for all the people that have gone on before us. We thank you for the heroes of the faith that have run the good race. And Lord if there is any person – a pastor, an author, a spouse, a televangelist – or any tool of worship – communion, the mercy seat, the Sunday meeting – that we value more than you, that we worship instead of you, Lord please forgive us, and please tear down its distractions in our lives just like you tore down the temple and build us anew as new creations so that we may worship you and you alone.
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www.sheepspeak.com
[1]Cf, Derek Kidner,: Ezra and Nehemiah: An Introduction and Commentary. Downers Grove, IL : InterVarsity Press, 1979 (Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries 12), S. 16. The second section can be further subdivided into Holiness and the Law (Ezra 7-10), Holiness and the Wall (Nehemiah 1-13).
[2] Cf. Sara Japhet, “The Supposed Common Authorship of Chronicles and Ezra-Nehemiah, Investigated Anew,” VT 18 (1968), 330-371. and Ralph W. Klein, “The Books of Ezra Nehemiah” (NIB III: Nashville, Tenn.: Abingdon, 1999), 663-664.
[3] 1) OT 2) History 3) Ezra (also Cyrus and Zerubbabel) 4) Nehemiah 5) Cyrus 6a) Temple 6b) Wall
[4] Cf. Donald E. Gowan, Amos. (NIB 7. Nashville, Tenn.: Abingdon Press, 1996), 347, 383. Cf. also Thomas E. McComiskey, The Expositor's Bible Commentary, Pradis CD-ROM:Amos/Introduction to Amos/Theological Values of Amos/The doctrine of election in Amos, Book Version: 4.0.2
[5] Edwin Yamauchi, The Expositor's Bible Commentary, Pradis CD-ROM: Ezra/Introduction to Ezra and Nehemiah/Background of Ezra and Nehemiah, Book Version: 4.0.2: Deportation began with Tiglath-pileser III, who attacked Damascus and Galilee in 732 (2 Kings 15:29), carrying off at least 13,520 people to Assyria (ANET, pp. 283-84).
[6] Cf. Hugh Claycombe, ‘Zerubbabel’s Temple’ in NIV Study Bible (Grand Rapids, Michigan, USA: Zondervan Publishing, 2002), 674.
[7] Cf. P. Alexander, ‘Temple’ in Lions Encyclopaedia of the Bible (Herts, UK: Lion Publishing, 1986).
[8] The Temple: Some people even believed that God lived in the Temple. because among other things the site that it is built on is believed by some to be the sight where Adam was created, where Abraham was willing to sacrifice Isaac, where the venerated ‘cornerstone’ is located (cf. Matthew 21:42, Mark 12:10, Luke 20:17), where the rock that Jacob slept on and the one that the Muslims believe Mohammed ascended from towards heaven. The Temple there today is very important to Muslims, just like the earlier temples were very important before the purpose of the temple was fulfilled in Christ (cf. Matthew 4:5-6, Mark 13:1, Acts 3:1-11). If you want to learn more about the Temple in pre-Christian Judaism and what it must have been like, we should probably look at the Muslim Temple worship (particularly in Mecca). As opposed to contemporary Judaism which has abandoned much of its historical beliefs and practices around the temple, the Muslims still have all the important animals sacrifices and similar rituals to that which the people of God were supposed to partake in prior to the advent of Christ. Christians have of course moved on. We know that through the death and resurrection of Jesus the purpose of the Temple has been fulfilled and that if we flip to Revelation 21, you will note that when God creates the heavens and the earth anew and when He makes the New Jerusalem there is NO TEMPLE in it. Christ fulfills that roll.
[9] ‘The Temple’ in The Masonic Trowel. Available on-line at http://www.themasonictrowel.com/
[10] Cf. Derek Kidner: Ezra and Nehemiah: An Introduction and Commentary. Downers Grove, IL : InterVarsity Press, 1979 (Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries 12), S. 36: According to Josephus, however (Ant. xi. 1), Cyrus had been shown the prophecy of Isaiah 44:28, which names him, and was eager to fulfil it. While this is not impossible, it has no corroboration; and Cyrus’s own inscription shows that any knowledge he may have had of the Lord was nominal at best. Isaiah 45:5f. insists that to know the Lord involves acknowledging no god beside him.
[11] Cf. ‘Cyrus Cylinder’ in Ancient Near Eastern Texts edited by J. B. Pritchard, 1955, page 316. Cf. also Derek Kidner,: Ezra and Nehemiah: An Introduction and Commentary. Downers Grove, IL : InterVarsity Press, 1979 (Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries 12), S. 16 for a discussion of the Persian leaders’ position on religious tolerance and diversity.
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
Matthew 21:23-32: Help Wanted!
Presented to Swift Current Corps 01 August 2010
and CFOT 15 November 2006
by Captain Michael Ramsay
Have you ever really needed a job? I can remember a short time in my life when, you know the expression, it seemed like I couldn’t buy a job. Because of this – and other things- I am forced to piece together a contract here and a week or two of work there, in order to make ends meet. Every week I go around with Cory, a friend of mine, to speak to potential employers and bid on various contracts. We were in our late teens or very early twenties at this time and I should make one thing clear: Yes we do need the work but we are young then and we are still somewhat picky. Generally we try not to work for less than a certain wage and I generally try to avoid too much manual labour.
Well, one day Cory and I are offered a job at the Esquimalt Navy base. It is only for 2 days and it will be really hard, boring work with a lot of non-stop heavy lifting, and it pays about minimum wage (everything that I didn’t want in a job!). Oh well. Cory says he’ll do it and tries to convince me that we should take the job but I am probably a little too immature back then and I don’t want any job that much so I say ‘thanks’ but ‘no thanks’.
That night I arrive home, check my answering machine, and a better contract; a job that I have been hoping for… does not come through. I open my mail and you notice that there is one thing that always comes through in a crisis though – the bills! And I now have a stack of them! So I call the about the base contract: “sure I can be there. 7 am, okay. Work boots, fine. DREP Building, okay.”
Cory, who told me he wanted to work there, decides to pass on the contract. He doesn’t show up for work. I do go into work that day and the next day. I persevere and finish the 2-day job and at the end of it, I am called into the Boss’ office. He says I can have a new contract if I want to keep working there… with no heavy lifting… about double the pay… an office and a staff of my own, and I can take time off whenever I want. It really paid to go into work that day! I’m glad I took the job. The boss invited us to work for him; I’m glad I didn’t pass on the contract. That reminds me of a parable that Jesus told.
Please refer with me back to Matthew 21:28-31, where Jesus tells this parable about working for God to the religious leaders:
Verse 28, "What do you think? A man had two sons; he went to the first and said, "Son, go and work in the vineyard today.' He answered, "I will not'; but later he changed his mind and went. The father went to the second and said the same; and he answered, "I will go, sir'; but he did not go. [Jesus asks the religious leaders] Which of the two did the will of his father?" (pause) They said, "The first." Jesus said to them, "Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are going into the kingdom of God ahead of you!
The Pharisees and scribes do not go to work that day; they pass on the contract; they pass on getting into God’s Kingdom of Heaven ahead of even the tax collectors and the prostitutes. God himself offers them work and they pass up this opportunity to work for God.
Jesus is, through this parable of the two sons (Matthew 21:28-32), as with the parable of the vineyard that we looked at last week (Matthew 21:33-45), and the parable of the King’s banquet, he is answering the Pharisees and Scribes question which is recorded for us in verse 23, "By what authority are you doing these things, and who gave you this authority?"[1] (Matthew 21:23-23; cf. Mark 11:27-33; Luke 20:1-8) Jesus is letting the very important religious leaders of his day know not only that He exercises His authority in doing His Father’s work (cf. Matthew 10-12; Mark 3; Luke 11; John 5:17, 5:36, 10, 14-15) but also that the religious authorities do not have any real authority because they are not working for God (cf. Matthew 3:7; chapters 10-12; 23:33; Mark 3; Luke 3:7; chapter 11; John 8:39).
It is like with us. When Susan, John Duncan (or CFS Director) or I call up social workers, the prosecutors, RCMP, other churches or businesses in town; when we are organising food drives or when doing advocacy work for people, we don’t derive our authority from who we are. We derive our authority from whom we work for: The Salvation Army (and ultimately God!). If John - who is still fairly new in his position - calls up a business that doesn’t know that he works here and begins asking for information and forgets to mention who he works for, do you think they would give him the information? I hope not. We derive our authority from whom we work for not from ourselves.
Likewise, if an acquaintance knocks on your door either when you are very busy or in the middle of the night, you might not be so inclined to answer the door. If, however, you peer out the window and see red and blue lights lit atop her car and she in her blue constable’s uniform, you will probably race to the door to see what she wants. Her authority comes from whom she works for.
This is true for all of us: our authority is not our own it is derived from whom we work. We only have real authority if we work for God and Jesus is stating that He does have real authority because He works for God but that the Pharisees, the religious leaders don’t have that real authority because they don’t work for God.
Look with me back at verse 28. The religious leaders know that Jesus is talking to them, they know what he is telling them: that they don’t have God’s authority. They know the man in the parable represents God. They know that Jesus is talking about them because Jesus spells it out for them! Look in verses 31 and 32: “the tax collectors and the prostitutes are going into the kingdom of God ahead of you.” Jesus says of the religious leaders and “even after you saw it (the way of righteousness), you did not change your minds and believe.” By what authority does Jesus operate, they ask, not the same authority as you do, he replies! Jesus works for God.
Jesus, through this parable, tells the religious leaders that God asked them to come to work for him and, after saying they would (presumably by means of their religious vows), they aren’t working for Him. Now this is significant! This isn’t just Joe Blow on the street who knows nothing about anything that Jesus is speaking to and about here. These are the religious leaders and these religious leaders are the people with apparent authority on earth. These are the people who know the scriptures. These are the people who pray everyday. These are the people in society who fast and are involved in all the religious ceremonies. These are the people who are seemingly trying to please God. These are the religious authorities and they do not have God’s authority because they are refusing God’s invitation to work with Him and they are not going to make it into heaven ahead of even the prostitutes and the tax collectors.
In our society today, who are the apparent religious authorities? Our religious leaders are our pastors, our clerical hierarchy, televangelists and the religious authors. Do you have a favourite author: Someone whose writings really resonate with you? Someone who is popular? Someone who is quoted by others and even gets invited to visit the Pope, our Queen, or the US President? If they have a following, they are a religious leader. And the leaders mentioned in Matthew 21 don’t have the authority that comes from working for God. Today why do our leaders publish their books, is it for God or money? Why do they write their songs? Is it for God or is it for fame? For whom are they working? From whom do they get their authority?
And what about us, you and I here? Will we get into heaven ahead of the tax collectors and prostitutes? If the religious leaders who walked the earth at the same time as Jesus and his disciples seemingly aren’t even working for God, how can we? How can we? When we showed up for church today did we do so to worship God or to see our friends or for some other reason? When we pray, do we really speak to God or do we just roll rote ‘graces’ off our tongues before we eat – if even that. Maybe we don’t even bother to say grace when we are out in public? Are we any better than the religious authorities of Jesus’ day; are we any better than so-named ‘tax collectors and prostitutes’?
And about the fact that the religious leaders of Jesus’ day themselves are missing the point and failing to work for Him and not making it into heaven ahead of tax collectors and prostitutes, I read about some pretty scary things happening with our own religious authorities who don’t seem to be working for God. Did you know that there is even a Bible that they are publishing now which has big sections that have been intentionally taken out of it? In keeping with the ever-prevalent prosperity heresy to which many North Americans seem to fall prey, in this Bible they have removed the sections where God calls for action around money, justice or affluence... “We don't use those passages anyway”, the publisher of this ‘Bible’ says, “There's no single Christian selling his possessions and giving them to the poor.” He goes on, explaining the apparent North American hypocrisy, “Many Christians accept the Western lifestyle, including the degradation of creation and the injustice of our trade, and they only take the easy parts of the gospel.”[2] So then, I ask us today, if this evil is true, which it seems to be of our own society, who are we working for in our country and in our congregation? And will any of us here get into heaven ahead of transvestites or those who sell their bodies for money?
Those that sell themselves for money, the prostitutes; what about them? …And the tax collectors for that matter, what about them? See verse 32. God invites them into his kingdom. He invites them to work for him. He invites them and they believe. They believe. The prostitutes -remember Rehab from Joshua and the battle of Jericho (Joshua Chapters two and six) in the Old Testament? - and the tax collectors - remember Levi (the writer of the book of Matthew) – they believe.[3]
Now, this is shocking for the religious authorities to hear that prostitutes are a part of the Kingdom of God and they aren’t. Today, we are not necessarily so shocked by prostitutes[4] but the religious leaders of Jesus’ day are. Revenue Canada seems like a good job to us. But the tax collectors of Jesus’ day were working for their occupying forces. Some people see them as traitors to their country. And we know what happens to traitors working for occupying forces today – they get killed! But it is these people (even though they may have said ‘no’ to God their whole life) it is these people who Jesus is saying that as they repent[5] and come to work for God they will enter the kingdom even ahead of even the religious authorities”[6]
The prostitutes and the tax collectors believe[7] – and this is important – they don’t just say they’ll work for God. God invites them and they do it! This is great. Even the people who are among the most looked down on in their society - God wants them to work for him and THEY do! They repent and, like the second son in our parable, they go to work for God. They enter the Kingdom of Heaven! They have His authority. Isn’t this great? It doesn’t matter what they have done; it doesn’t matter what they have done to this point. It doesn’t matter. They believe Jesus, they change, they stop what they are doing and they go to work for God and in so doing they enter heaven even ahead of the religious leaders of their day.
And how about us in our day? God wants us to work for Him. Really! And we can, no matter what our resumes look like. This is true. He wants us to experience the full authority that comes from working for Him. I have another friend, Mike. Mike once in his wanderings pulled the trigger on a bank teller at point blank range. Mike is now out of jail and has the full authority that comes from having been working for God solidly for the last decade or so.
Think about it. It doesn’t matter what we have done. It doesn’t matter that we have committed what we might think to be the worst of all sins. God loves us. It doesn’t matter what we have done, how many times we have said ‘no’ to God, as long as we repent. God is inviting each of us to change our minds and work for Him. We are invited to turn and enter the Kingdom of Heaven even ahead of the possibly much more knowledgeable religious leaders of Jesus’ own day and maybe even some of our own day.
It is not too late to work for God. We can still represent God’s full authority. The contract is up for tender. It is not a minimum wage job. It has great benefits. We can work for God. You can work for God. Isn’t this great? Really! Isn’t this great? He really wants us. He wants you to work for him. So, if you are not already, Jesus is asking you to come to work with Him. God has asked you to come to work. If you have said yes, come to work; if you have said no, come to work. Come to work. It is not too late. Even if you have said no up until now, it is not too late to come and work for Jesus.
If you have never said yes to God, or if you have said you would work for him and aren’t. Whatever the reason; whatever you have done, we have a place up here called the mercy seat where you can come and meet God. Come now and work for God.
Let us pray.
Song: Come to Jesus.
www.sheepspeak.com
---
[1] Cf . Douglas R.A. Hare, Interpretation: Matthew. (Louisville, Kentucky: John Knox Press, 1993), 245.
[2] Captain Stephen Court. Armybarmy Blog: Sunday, October 22, 2006. [Cited 22 10 2006]. No Pages. On-line: http://www.fao.org/es/ess/index_en.asp
[3] Cf . Donald A. Hagner, Word Bible Commentary. Vol. 33B. (Dallas, Texas: Word Books, 1995), 614
[4] Expositor's Bible Commentary, The, Pradis CD-ROM:Matthew/Exposition of Matthew/VI. Opposition and Eschatology: The Triumph of Grace (19:3-26:5)/A. Narrative (19:3-23:39)/8. Opening events of Passion Week (21:1-23:39)/d. Controversies in the temple court (21:23-22:46)/(2) The parable of the two sons (21:28-32), Book Version: 4.0.2
[5] Ibid.
[6] Ibid.
[7] Gail R. O’Day, The New Interpreter’s Bible. Vol. 9. (Nashville, Tenn.: Abingdon Press, 1995), 841; cf Donald A. Hagner, p. 614
and CFOT 15 November 2006
by Captain Michael Ramsay
Have you ever really needed a job? I can remember a short time in my life when, you know the expression, it seemed like I couldn’t buy a job. Because of this – and other things- I am forced to piece together a contract here and a week or two of work there, in order to make ends meet. Every week I go around with Cory, a friend of mine, to speak to potential employers and bid on various contracts. We were in our late teens or very early twenties at this time and I should make one thing clear: Yes we do need the work but we are young then and we are still somewhat picky. Generally we try not to work for less than a certain wage and I generally try to avoid too much manual labour.
Well, one day Cory and I are offered a job at the Esquimalt Navy base. It is only for 2 days and it will be really hard, boring work with a lot of non-stop heavy lifting, and it pays about minimum wage (everything that I didn’t want in a job!). Oh well. Cory says he’ll do it and tries to convince me that we should take the job but I am probably a little too immature back then and I don’t want any job that much so I say ‘thanks’ but ‘no thanks’.
That night I arrive home, check my answering machine, and a better contract; a job that I have been hoping for… does not come through. I open my mail and you notice that there is one thing that always comes through in a crisis though – the bills! And I now have a stack of them! So I call the about the base contract: “sure I can be there. 7 am, okay. Work boots, fine. DREP Building, okay.”
Cory, who told me he wanted to work there, decides to pass on the contract. He doesn’t show up for work. I do go into work that day and the next day. I persevere and finish the 2-day job and at the end of it, I am called into the Boss’ office. He says I can have a new contract if I want to keep working there… with no heavy lifting… about double the pay… an office and a staff of my own, and I can take time off whenever I want. It really paid to go into work that day! I’m glad I took the job. The boss invited us to work for him; I’m glad I didn’t pass on the contract. That reminds me of a parable that Jesus told.
Please refer with me back to Matthew 21:28-31, where Jesus tells this parable about working for God to the religious leaders:
Verse 28, "What do you think? A man had two sons; he went to the first and said, "Son, go and work in the vineyard today.' He answered, "I will not'; but later he changed his mind and went. The father went to the second and said the same; and he answered, "I will go, sir'; but he did not go. [Jesus asks the religious leaders] Which of the two did the will of his father?" (pause) They said, "The first." Jesus said to them, "Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are going into the kingdom of God ahead of you!
The Pharisees and scribes do not go to work that day; they pass on the contract; they pass on getting into God’s Kingdom of Heaven ahead of even the tax collectors and the prostitutes. God himself offers them work and they pass up this opportunity to work for God.
Jesus is, through this parable of the two sons (Matthew 21:28-32), as with the parable of the vineyard that we looked at last week (Matthew 21:33-45), and the parable of the King’s banquet, he is answering the Pharisees and Scribes question which is recorded for us in verse 23, "By what authority are you doing these things, and who gave you this authority?"[1] (Matthew 21:23-23; cf. Mark 11:27-33; Luke 20:1-8) Jesus is letting the very important religious leaders of his day know not only that He exercises His authority in doing His Father’s work (cf. Matthew 10-12; Mark 3; Luke 11; John 5:17, 5:36, 10, 14-15) but also that the religious authorities do not have any real authority because they are not working for God (cf. Matthew 3:7; chapters 10-12; 23:33; Mark 3; Luke 3:7; chapter 11; John 8:39).
It is like with us. When Susan, John Duncan (or CFS Director) or I call up social workers, the prosecutors, RCMP, other churches or businesses in town; when we are organising food drives or when doing advocacy work for people, we don’t derive our authority from who we are. We derive our authority from whom we work for: The Salvation Army (and ultimately God!). If John - who is still fairly new in his position - calls up a business that doesn’t know that he works here and begins asking for information and forgets to mention who he works for, do you think they would give him the information? I hope not. We derive our authority from whom we work for not from ourselves.
Likewise, if an acquaintance knocks on your door either when you are very busy or in the middle of the night, you might not be so inclined to answer the door. If, however, you peer out the window and see red and blue lights lit atop her car and she in her blue constable’s uniform, you will probably race to the door to see what she wants. Her authority comes from whom she works for.
This is true for all of us: our authority is not our own it is derived from whom we work. We only have real authority if we work for God and Jesus is stating that He does have real authority because He works for God but that the Pharisees, the religious leaders don’t have that real authority because they don’t work for God.
Look with me back at verse 28. The religious leaders know that Jesus is talking to them, they know what he is telling them: that they don’t have God’s authority. They know the man in the parable represents God. They know that Jesus is talking about them because Jesus spells it out for them! Look in verses 31 and 32: “the tax collectors and the prostitutes are going into the kingdom of God ahead of you.” Jesus says of the religious leaders and “even after you saw it (the way of righteousness), you did not change your minds and believe.” By what authority does Jesus operate, they ask, not the same authority as you do, he replies! Jesus works for God.
Jesus, through this parable, tells the religious leaders that God asked them to come to work for him and, after saying they would (presumably by means of their religious vows), they aren’t working for Him. Now this is significant! This isn’t just Joe Blow on the street who knows nothing about anything that Jesus is speaking to and about here. These are the religious leaders and these religious leaders are the people with apparent authority on earth. These are the people who know the scriptures. These are the people who pray everyday. These are the people in society who fast and are involved in all the religious ceremonies. These are the people who are seemingly trying to please God. These are the religious authorities and they do not have God’s authority because they are refusing God’s invitation to work with Him and they are not going to make it into heaven ahead of even the prostitutes and the tax collectors.
In our society today, who are the apparent religious authorities? Our religious leaders are our pastors, our clerical hierarchy, televangelists and the religious authors. Do you have a favourite author: Someone whose writings really resonate with you? Someone who is popular? Someone who is quoted by others and even gets invited to visit the Pope, our Queen, or the US President? If they have a following, they are a religious leader. And the leaders mentioned in Matthew 21 don’t have the authority that comes from working for God. Today why do our leaders publish their books, is it for God or money? Why do they write their songs? Is it for God or is it for fame? For whom are they working? From whom do they get their authority?
And what about us, you and I here? Will we get into heaven ahead of the tax collectors and prostitutes? If the religious leaders who walked the earth at the same time as Jesus and his disciples seemingly aren’t even working for God, how can we? How can we? When we showed up for church today did we do so to worship God or to see our friends or for some other reason? When we pray, do we really speak to God or do we just roll rote ‘graces’ off our tongues before we eat – if even that. Maybe we don’t even bother to say grace when we are out in public? Are we any better than the religious authorities of Jesus’ day; are we any better than so-named ‘tax collectors and prostitutes’?
And about the fact that the religious leaders of Jesus’ day themselves are missing the point and failing to work for Him and not making it into heaven ahead of tax collectors and prostitutes, I read about some pretty scary things happening with our own religious authorities who don’t seem to be working for God. Did you know that there is even a Bible that they are publishing now which has big sections that have been intentionally taken out of it? In keeping with the ever-prevalent prosperity heresy to which many North Americans seem to fall prey, in this Bible they have removed the sections where God calls for action around money, justice or affluence... “We don't use those passages anyway”, the publisher of this ‘Bible’ says, “There's no single Christian selling his possessions and giving them to the poor.” He goes on, explaining the apparent North American hypocrisy, “Many Christians accept the Western lifestyle, including the degradation of creation and the injustice of our trade, and they only take the easy parts of the gospel.”[2] So then, I ask us today, if this evil is true, which it seems to be of our own society, who are we working for in our country and in our congregation? And will any of us here get into heaven ahead of transvestites or those who sell their bodies for money?
Those that sell themselves for money, the prostitutes; what about them? …And the tax collectors for that matter, what about them? See verse 32. God invites them into his kingdom. He invites them to work for him. He invites them and they believe. They believe. The prostitutes -remember Rehab from Joshua and the battle of Jericho (Joshua Chapters two and six) in the Old Testament? - and the tax collectors - remember Levi (the writer of the book of Matthew) – they believe.[3]
Now, this is shocking for the religious authorities to hear that prostitutes are a part of the Kingdom of God and they aren’t. Today, we are not necessarily so shocked by prostitutes[4] but the religious leaders of Jesus’ day are. Revenue Canada seems like a good job to us. But the tax collectors of Jesus’ day were working for their occupying forces. Some people see them as traitors to their country. And we know what happens to traitors working for occupying forces today – they get killed! But it is these people (even though they may have said ‘no’ to God their whole life) it is these people who Jesus is saying that as they repent[5] and come to work for God they will enter the kingdom even ahead of even the religious authorities”[6]
The prostitutes and the tax collectors believe[7] – and this is important – they don’t just say they’ll work for God. God invites them and they do it! This is great. Even the people who are among the most looked down on in their society - God wants them to work for him and THEY do! They repent and, like the second son in our parable, they go to work for God. They enter the Kingdom of Heaven! They have His authority. Isn’t this great? It doesn’t matter what they have done; it doesn’t matter what they have done to this point. It doesn’t matter. They believe Jesus, they change, they stop what they are doing and they go to work for God and in so doing they enter heaven even ahead of the religious leaders of their day.
And how about us in our day? God wants us to work for Him. Really! And we can, no matter what our resumes look like. This is true. He wants us to experience the full authority that comes from working for Him. I have another friend, Mike. Mike once in his wanderings pulled the trigger on a bank teller at point blank range. Mike is now out of jail and has the full authority that comes from having been working for God solidly for the last decade or so.
Think about it. It doesn’t matter what we have done. It doesn’t matter that we have committed what we might think to be the worst of all sins. God loves us. It doesn’t matter what we have done, how many times we have said ‘no’ to God, as long as we repent. God is inviting each of us to change our minds and work for Him. We are invited to turn and enter the Kingdom of Heaven even ahead of the possibly much more knowledgeable religious leaders of Jesus’ own day and maybe even some of our own day.
It is not too late to work for God. We can still represent God’s full authority. The contract is up for tender. It is not a minimum wage job. It has great benefits. We can work for God. You can work for God. Isn’t this great? Really! Isn’t this great? He really wants us. He wants you to work for him. So, if you are not already, Jesus is asking you to come to work with Him. God has asked you to come to work. If you have said yes, come to work; if you have said no, come to work. Come to work. It is not too late. Even if you have said no up until now, it is not too late to come and work for Jesus.
If you have never said yes to God, or if you have said you would work for him and aren’t. Whatever the reason; whatever you have done, we have a place up here called the mercy seat where you can come and meet God. Come now and work for God.
Let us pray.
Song: Come to Jesus.
www.sheepspeak.com
---
[1] Cf . Douglas R.A. Hare, Interpretation: Matthew. (Louisville, Kentucky: John Knox Press, 1993), 245.
[2] Captain Stephen Court. Armybarmy Blog: Sunday, October 22, 2006. [Cited 22 10 2006]. No Pages. On-line: http://www.fao.org/es/ess/index_en.asp
[3] Cf . Donald A. Hagner, Word Bible Commentary. Vol. 33B. (Dallas, Texas: Word Books, 1995), 614
[4] Expositor's Bible Commentary, The, Pradis CD-ROM:Matthew/Exposition of Matthew/VI. Opposition and Eschatology: The Triumph of Grace (19:3-26:5)/A. Narrative (19:3-23:39)/8. Opening events of Passion Week (21:1-23:39)/d. Controversies in the temple court (21:23-22:46)/(2) The parable of the two sons (21:28-32), Book Version: 4.0.2
[5] Ibid.
[6] Ibid.
[7] Gail R. O’Day, The New Interpreter’s Bible. Vol. 9. (Nashville, Tenn.: Abingdon Press, 1995), 841; cf Donald A. Hagner, p. 614
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