Ezra 1–2

0:00 It's very good to be with you this morning. We will be in the book of Ezra this morning. We're starting three weeks in the book of Ezra. Lord willing, we'll also be finishing up the book of Ezra at the very end of the summer as well. So that's on. If you're new to Third Avenue, or perhaps you're not even a Christian, you're gathered here with us this morning. We're so grateful that you're here. We're going to spend the next several minutes going through God's Word and opening it up to a certain passage. There should be a Bible there in front of you that you certainly can take and borrow for now or take it home with you if you'd like.

0:34 You'll find the book of Ezra on page 389. So if you want to follow along with us, that'd be most helpful for you. We're actually going to cover a big chunk of that book today, the first two chapters. So how many of you, by show of hands, how many of you have ever been to Florida or California? It's like all of you, I think. How many of you have been to Oklahoma? Wow! Well, okay, we've got to pick a different state.

1:05 How many of you have been to Iowa? Yeah, it went down, understandably. Okay. You know why that number went down, right? Not from Oklahoma to Iowa, but from Florida, California to Iowa, let's say. It's because it's called a flyover state, right? It's a flyover state. Well, why do we call it a flyover state? Well, it's because typically the majority of the population lives on the coast here in the U.S., and so people, they're getting from one place to another. They're going to travel from one populous area to another. They're going to fly over those states, right?

1:37 And maybe if you were one of those people who raised your hands for Florida, California, and you didn't raise your hands for Iowa or Oklahoma, maybe you're either just from an extreme kind of edge of the coast, or maybe you even think, what's even there in Oklahoma? why would I even go there? Well, I get it, right? That's why they're called flyover states. People don't know what's there. They just kind of pass over them. I think there's flyover books of the Bible as well, right? And I think Ezra is one of those. If you are like most Christians, right, maybe almost all of us in this room, I'd imagine, you've probably never heard a sermon from Ezra.

2:18 You probably aren't buying lots of book studies, right? Like the most popular books on Twitter are not about the book of Ezra. You're just not going to hear a lot about Ezra. So maybe your tendency is a lot like mine was actually when I came to study it these past few weeks. What's even in there? I don't just kind of pass over that. I just tend to let my eyes just run right over that when I get to my Bible reading. What is even in the book of Ezra? Well, we're going to jump right into the middle of a long and important story today with this book and with these next few weeks.

2:49 And we're going to have to get oriented to understand it all. It would be a little bit like trying to open up something like Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings right into the middle of just a random chapter, right? You just don't do that with big, epic stories. And that, in essence, is what we are doing right here with Ezra. We're hopping right into the middle of a hugely important and epic part of the unfolding story of the Bible. You've got to know who the characters are, where they are, what they're doing, what the subplots are even to understand what's going on. So we need to get some of that squared away as we get started here at the very beginning especially. So the book of Ezra was probably written by a man of the same name sometime in the mid-5th century BC. So like not 500 after Jesus, but 500 before Jesus, right, a long, long time ago. And Ezra himself was a priest and a scribe who ministered to the nation of Israel as they went back from exile. And he did so by preaching God's word to them and then serving as a priest in the newly rebuilt temple. So his book is actually built or

3:54 split into two major chunks of time. We'll see that over the next several weeks. You've got chapters one through six describe events long before Ezra, even upwards of 80 years before Ezra's time. And then 7 through 10 are events that Ezra himself lived through. So we'll rehearse that as we go through it, but think of it's two big chunks of time. Chapters 1 through 6, it's way before Ezra. He's just recording what's already happened. And then chapter 7 through 10, he lived through himself. I mean, the book itself is doing several things, and we'll see that as we go through it. But a few of the most significant reasons the Lord seems to have preserved this for us is to teach us and to remind us of his faithfulness to his people. Just very straightforwardly, the Lord intends to remind us that he is faithful to his people, and also he intends to show us the importance of rightly worshiping him according to his word. So in other words, the book of Ezra is going to show us in living color what it means to trust God's word and to live in accordance with God's word. It's just very straightforward in that regard, and that's why we're going to spend

4:55 time in it in these next few weeks. It has relevance as much to say to us today. But it doesn't do so in a vacuum, right? It just doesn't kind of just say that to us. No, like we said, it's a story that sits within the larger storyline of the Bible. So really briefly, if we try to set the stage for that, you've got to understand that all the way back in the beginning, God relates to his people through promises, right? He makes certain promises to them. And one of the most important promises that he makes in the Bible and therefore really in all of history is a promise that he made to a man named Abram that we would later be known he'd later be known as Abraham and in Genesis the Lord tells Abram that he would have a people in a land with a blessing right that this people would be God's people well the rest of the storyline of the Bible is basically spent tracing the ups and downs of this people and how they rebel against the Lord how they they sin and they chase off after the things of this world. So God sends them in his kindness prophets and priests

5:56 and kings to try and warn them and teach them and call them back to following after him. And sometimes it works, but it never lasts. They always chase back after the sins, the sinful things of this world, and they always rebel against God. So time and time again, the prophets, they keep coming back And they keep trying to warn Israel that if they don't repent, one day the Lord is going to punish you by sending you off into exile. He's going to do so through conquering pagan armies.

6:27 You've just got prophet after prophet after prophet coming in and saying this. They'd be far off from their land. They'd have no way to worship God according to the ways he's commanded them. And his presence with them would seemingly be gone. And that's exactly what's happened to God's people as we enter into the book of Ezra. So if you've got your Bible open, flip back just a few pages to 2 Chronicles 36. So it should be, yeah, just like the page before, maybe even that same page if they're facing one another, I'm not sure.

7:00 But 2 Chronicles 36, 2 Chronicles 36 is a history of, or 2 Chronicles rather, is a history of God's people. And right here in chapter 36, this is just mere decades before Ezra and the book of Ezra. So starting in verse 15, listen to how devastating this scene sounds. The Lord, the God of their fathers, sent persistently to them, and the them there is God's people, sent persistently to them by his messengers because he had compassion on his people and on his dwelling place.

7:33 But they kept mocking the messengers of God, despising his words and scoffing at his prophets until the wrath of the Lord rose against his people, until there was no remedy. Therefore, he brought up against them the king of the Chaldeans, who killed their young men with a sword in the house of their sanctuary and had no compassion on young man or virgin, old man or aged. He gave them all into his hand. And all the vessels of the house of God, great and small, and the treasures of the house of the Lord, and the treasures of the king and of his princes, all these he brought to Babylon.

8:05 And they burned the house of God and broke down the wall of Jerusalem and burned all its palaces with fire and destroyed all its precious vessels. He took into exile in Babylon those who had escaped from the sword, and they became servants to him and to his sons until the establishment of the kingdom of Persia. Do you see what's happening there in their punishment? Do you see what's unfolding there in that particular punishment? It's an undoing, basically, of every single one of those promises given to Abraham.

8:39 The people are conquered, and eventually, it seems, would be driven into non-existence in captivity. They've been removed from the land, and surely they felt like the Lord's blessing was removed from them in their exile. So the people, the land, the blessing, all of those promises just shredded to pieces and now crumpled up in the burned ashes and the remains of the city of Jerusalem.

9:11 And that's where we pick up our story. That the people of God are in a distant land with what must feel like no hope whatsoever as they think of those promises given to Abraham and no chance to recover them. And that's what sets us up for our story this morning. So we're going to read the first two chapters of Ezra, and I'm going to caveat it this way. You're going to notice, and maybe you have noticed, as if you read those first two chapters on your own before this morning, chapter two is a long list of names. Oftentimes we would skip right over that. We're going to read it. So stick with me.

9:42 We're going to read the whole thing. There's a particular reason why. It'll become clear later on why we're reading that. But stay with me on that. I'm just going to try my best with those names. Ezra chapter 1. In the first year of Cyrus, king of Persia, that the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah might be fulfilled, the Lord stirred up the spirit of Cyrus, king of Persia, so that he made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom and also put it in writing. Thus says Cyrus king of Persia, the Lord, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth, and he has charged me to build him a house at Jerusalem, which is in Judah. Whoever is among you of all his people, may his God be with him, and let him go up to Jerusalem, which is in Judah, and rebuild the house of the Lord, the God of Israel. He is a God who is in Jerusalem. And let each survivor in whatever place he sojourns be assisted by the men of his place with silver and gold with goods and with beasts, besides freewill offerings for the house of God that is in

10:43 Jerusalem. Then rose up the heads of the fathers, houses of Judah and Benjamin and the priests and the Levites, everyone whose spirit God had stirred to go up to rebuild the house of the Lord that is in Jerusalem. And all who were about them aided them with vessels of silver, with gold, with goods, with beasts, and with costly wares, besides all that was freely offered. Cyrus, the king, also brought out the vessels of the house of the Lord that Nebuchadnezzar had carried away from Jerusalem and placed in the house of his gods. Cyrus, king of Persia, brought these out in the charge of Mithradath, the treasurer, who counted them out to Sheshbazar, the prince of Judah. And this was the number of them, 30 basins of gold, a thousand basins of silver, 29 censers, 30 bowls of gold, 410 bowls of silver, and a thousand other vessels. All the vessels of gold and of silver were 5,400.

11:32 All these did Sheshbazar bring up when the exiles were brought up from Babylonia to Jerusalem. Now, these were the people of the province who came up out of the captivity of those exiles whom Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, had carried captive to Babylonia. They returned to Jerusalem and Judah, each to his own town. They came with Zerubbabel, Jeshua, Nehemiah, Sariah, Realiah, Mordecai, Bilshan, Mizpar, Bigvi, Rehum, and Baanah. The number of the men of the people of Israel, the sons of Parosh, 2,172.

12:06 The sons of Shephatiah, 372. The sons of Erah, 775. The sons of Pahath Moab, namely the sons of Jeshua and Joab, 2,812. The sons of Elam, 1,254. The sons of Zatu, 945. The sons of Zakkai, 760. The sons of Bani, 642. the sons of the sons of the sons sorry the sons of Aden 454 the sons of Atar namely of Hezekiah 98 the sons of Bezi 323 the sons of Jorah 112 the sons of Hashim 223 the sons of Gebar 95 the sons of Bethlehem 123 the men of Natophe 56 the man of Anathoth 128 the sons of Asmaveth 42 the The sons of Kiriath Arim, Hepairah, and Beoroth, 743.

12:56 The sons of Ramah and Geba, 621. The men of Mikmas, 122. The men of Bethel and Ai, 223. The sons of Nebo, 52. The sons of Magbish, 156. The sons of the other Elam. Pause there. Even they got confused by the names, right? So the other Elam. The sons of the other Elam, 1,254. The sons of Harim, 320. The sons of Lod, Hadid, and Ono, 725. the sons of Jericho 345, the sons of Saniah 3630, the priests, the sons of Jediah of the house of Jeshua 973, the sons of Emmer 1052, the sons of Pasher 1247, the sons of Harim 1017, the Levites, the sons of Jeshua and Kadmiel, the sons of Hodaviah 74, the singers, the sons of Asaph 128, the sons of the gatekeepers, the sons of Shalom, the sons of Atar, the sons of Talmon, the sons of Hakub, the sons of Hatida, and the sons of Shobai in all, 139. The temple servants, the sons of Zihah, the sons of Hashufah, the sons of Taboth, the sons of Keros, the sons of Sihah, the sons of Padon,

14:00 the sons of Lebanon, the sons of Hagabah, and the sons of Hakub, the sons of Hagab, the sons of Shemlai, the sons of Hanan, the sons of Gedei, the sons of Gehar, the sons of Rea, the sons of Rezin, the sons of Nakoda, the sons of Gazam, the sons of Uzzah, the sons of Paseah, the sons of Besai, the sons of Asnah, the sons of Meonim, the sons of Nefesim, the sons of Bakbuk, the sons of Akufa, the sons of Harhur, the sons of Basluth, the sons of Mahida, the sons of Harsha, the sons of Barcos, the sons of Sisera, the sons of Tima, the sons of Neziah, and the sons of Hatipha, the sons of Solomon's servants, the sons of Sotai, the sons of Hasopareth, the sons of Peruda, the sons of Jala, the sons of Darkon, the sons of Giddel, the sons of Shephetiah, the sons of Hatil, the sons of Pokereth Hazabayim, and the sons of Ami.

14:46 All the temple servants and the sons of Solomon's servants were 392. The following were those who came up from Telmalah, Telharshah, Cherub, Adan, and Emmer, though they could not prove their father's houses or their descent, whether they belonged to Israel. The sons of Deliah, the sons of Tobiah, and the sons of Nakoda, 652. Also of the sons of the priests, the sons of Habiah, the sons of Hachoz, and the sons of Barzillai, who had taken a wife from the daughters of Barzillai, the Gileadite, and was called by their name. These sought their registration among those enrolled in the genealogies, but they were not found there, and so they were excluded from the priesthood as unclean.

15:24 The governor told them that they were not to partake of the most holy food until there should be a priest to consult Urim and Thummim. The whole assembly together was 42,360, besides their male and female servants, of whom there were 7,337, and they had 200 male and female singers. Their horses were 736, their mules were 245, their camels were 435, and their donkeys were 6,720. Some of the heads of families, when they came to the house of the Lord that is in Jerusalem, made freewill offerings for the house of God to erect it on its site.

15:57 According to their ability, they gave to the treasury of the works 61,000 derricks of gold, 5,000 minas of silver, and 100 priest garments. Now the priests, the Levites, some of the people, the singers, the gatekeepers, and the temple servants lived in their towns, and all the rest of Israel in their towns. Not my intent. Trust me, there's something we're getting to later with that, because that's a mouthful for sure. So this is a story, right? This is obviously a story. It's meant to be read as a story. There's not so much a logical case being formed here that we can trace out the logic of something, but there is very much a flow to this story, right? The Lord and His Word are the primary focal points right from the very beginning, and these things all happen because the Lord sets them in motion, because He causes them to happen. But you've also got different characters. You've got different actions in regard to the Lord's stirring, and we'll see that as well. And there's also

17:02 movement. You've got a scene change. You've got a movement from one place to another. So in all of this, as the story kind of unfolds and as there's a flow to the story, a main thing is being communicated. And here's the main idea of all of that that we just read. I think the main idea of that passage is this. The Lord always keeps his promise to redeem his people, even when we might think all hope is gone. The Lord always keeps his promise to redeem his people, even when we might think all hope is gone. We've got three points to the sermon to kind of unpack that and see what that looks like in this passage. And those three different points, they're basically the major actions for what's happening in those two chapters. So number one, the Lord stirs.

17:48 Number two, the people respond. And number three, the Lord keeps his promise. So number one, the Lord stirs. Number two, people respond. And the third one is the Lord keeps his promise. So number one, the Lord stirs. You know, good movies always start with something that tries to arrest you, something that tries to bring you in. That's what an introduction is supposed to be. So think of the movie Gravity. Maybe it's been a while since you've seen the movie Gravity. You know, it came out 10, 15 years ago, not quite sure when, but several years ago. That movie begins with just this pitch black screen and words on it, right? Describing how bleak outer space is.

18:28 It's so cold. It's so dark. No life can live there. And underneath all of that, you've got this growing synth sound, this... And it gets louder and louder and louder. And finally, the last words you see on the screen are, life is impossible. And at that point, it's... And then it goes completely silent, and it's like it sucks the air out of you. You're just kind of left on the edge of your seat, and you're floating around in space all of a sudden, but it's a complete vacuum. I mean, it's a miraculous, incredible opening, and it takes mere seconds to get you hooked.

19:06 Well, that's what good introductions should do. I think that's, in fact, a little bit of what's happening here. Out of nowhere, with no prompting whatsoever, the Lord simply enters onto the scene and begins working. You can imagine it, right? If you think about it, you've got a pagan king, Cyrus, sitting on his throne, going about his business, doing whatever pagan kings do, right? He's planning, he's strategizing, he's gloating perhaps and reveling in victories. He, in fact, had only taken over Babylon a few years or a year prior to this moment. So maybe he's kind of looking around going, yeah, I like this place. I like what I have done. You know, he's doing whatever it is that kings do when suddenly, kind of out of nowhere it seems, he feels he needs to make a proclamation to this relatively small group of exiles that, hey, you all should go back home. You all should leave here, go back home, and rebuild your temple. What? Why would he do that? It should leave a

20:09 scratching our heads going, what is happening here? I'm hooked at this point because this does not make sense. Well, that's how the movie version goes, right? We as readers actually know why he did it. It's told us right there in verse 1. He did exactly what was prophesied of him for hundreds of years before. Verse 1 says that Jeremiah prophesied that the Israelites would return one day back to the land. And what Ezra doesn't do is he doesn't name Isaiah, the prophet Isaiah who prophesied about 150 years before Cyrus even came onto the scene as a king, and he names Cyrus and says it's going to be a man named Cyrus who will do these very things, and the Lord will use him to fulfill his purposes. But most importantly, look there in verse 1, it says the Lord has now stirred up the spirit of Cyrus to do this. How's it going to unfold? Okay, I get it that the Lord has done this, but what's going to happen? That's the drama we should be feeling at this point.

21:15 Well, Cyrus makes a proclamation and even puts it in writing, which that's not a throwaway. That's actually going to come back and be very, very important later on in the book of Ezra. And all these years later, he does just as it was foretold of him. He says he's going to send the people back to Jerusalem to rebuild their temple. Not only that, he's going to ensure that they have provisions they need to do that rebuilding, and even for their own well-being. Look, this is not, Cyrus is not a benevolent king just doing this out of the kindness of his heart, right? That's not what's going on here. This is a pagan conquering dictator, and these are his subjects. This should not have happened, but the Lord has stirred up Cyrus's heart to do so. He's not just stirred up Cyrus. Look at verse 5. The Lord stirred up his people as well. He stirred them up to trust him and to act.

22:07 Well, why is that important? Wouldn't they just obviously want to go back to their land? That's possible. But think of the task that actually was in front of them, right? This is a long journey from where they are back to Jerusalem. This is probably a four-month or so journey. That's how long it took Ezra. We can piece it together later on. They're going also, remember, to a decimated city, a city that had just been burned to the ground, to rebuild something that many, if not most of them, had never even seen. It's not just obvious that everyone would want to do that very thing, but the Lord stirred up their hearts to do this. And he didn't just stir up anyone. He stirred up all the necessary hearts to make it happen. Look at the list of the people that he stirs up.

22:52 He stirs up the heads of the houses who would be the leaders of the people, the priests, the Levites, the temple servants. In other words, everyone who would actually be necessary to pull off both the rebuilding of the temple and then the worship within that newly rebuilt temple. The Lord doesn't just stir up those who have an idea. He stirs up the ones necessary to make it happen. It's a fascinating story. even just right here, this tiny little group of exiles living under the thumb of a foreign dictator in a foreign land with zero hope of getting themselves out of it. They're suddenly commissioned by that ruler to go back and rebuild. But don't miss what's happening here. Don't miss who's doing this here. Look, it's not Cyrus. He didn't initiate this. It's not the Jewish exiles.

23:42 they don't initiate this. It's God. He initiates. He moves first. He stirs their hearts to act. He doesn't keep his promise to do this very thing because the exiles have finally just worn him down. They've got him cornered, and finally he just caves and does it for them. No, that's not what happens. He certainly doesn't do it because Cyrus thinks it's a good idea. It's not going to benefit him to do this. No, he's not persuaded by anyone to begin stirring hearts to make this happened. No, God does this because he is a God who keeps his promise to redeem his people.

24:19 Look, he made that promise to them centuries before, and he's making good on that promise to them now. He always keeps his promise to redeem. And the good news for us is that that's not just a part of this story. The good news is that he's doing that same thing today, right? Brothers and sisters, the Lord still stirs hearts. He awakens those who otherwise would maybe even come in here, listen to the preaching of the gospel, but would on their own accord have zero interest in God, zero interest in his ways. He takes dead, lifeless hearts of stone and breathes into them eternal life. Like that's why we evangelize. That is why we tell others the gospel. That's why we pray for our evangelism as well, that the Lord would make us strong and bold in our evangelism. Because we as a people actually believe that when the gospel goes forth from our lips, that the Lord will stir

25:21 hearts in order to redeem his people. Brethren and sisters, ask him to do that. ask God to stir hearts of those around you. Maybe it's your neighbor. Maybe it's your classmate. Maybe it's your family. Ask him to stir the hearts of those around you as a part of this same promise to redeem his people. He is a God who does that. So we see here that the Lord is the one who stirs up hearts, but that's not just where the story stops.

25:58 No, he initiates and moves, But people still respond in this story. So number two, point number two, the people respond. So there's a lot going on here in this passage, but there are basically two different types of characters. You've got Cyrus representing one of those, and then the people of God as the other characters. Basically the two types of characters. Both do what the Lord intends, but they do it with very different motives and with very different outcomes.

26:29 So let's take a look at those two different types of responses. So first, Cyrus. Look back at verse 1. Verse 1 tells us that he stirred up by the Lord to make this proclamation, but look at how he does this. At first, if you're just kind of casually reading through this, it might sound like Cyrus has become a worshiper of the Lord, right? Verse 2 says that he calls God the God of heaven, and he acknowledges that God is the one who's given to Cyrus all of these kingdoms that he rules anyway. But almost immediately in those next few verses, you start to see through this veneer of his words, right? Look at that next verse. It's like Cyrus is distancing himself from God's people. You guys go do this, right? Not me or my people. I'm not going to send my people. You exiles go do this thing. And then he says, God is the God in Jerusalem, and by extension, he's not the God where I am, right? We can put Yahweh, the Lord God, over there, but he doesn't really rule right here. I mean, you can almost

27:36 see him saying those first things with a little bit of sneer on his face, like, yeah, the God of heaven is the one who told me to do this. And yet, miraculously, he does it. He does it. He sends them back. Whether he believes it or not, whether he believes in God or not, he actually sends these exiles back. In verse 4, he tells the Jews who don't go back to help provide for those who do go back. He makes sure that there's going to be some type of provision for them. He actually goes a little further there in a few verses later, and he brings out these temple vessels that Nebuchadnezzar, the Babylonian king who actually conquered the people of God then, he took the temple vessels with him when he plundered Jerusalem decades before, brought him back into the city.

28:23 When Cyrus shows up, he sees all this stuff. When he sends the exiles back, he's like, here, take these vessels back with you as well. He's making provision for them. He looks incredibly kind and nice. But is he? Well, I think he's trying to position himself as a benevolent, kind, wise ruler of these subjugated and conquered people, and in the end, Cyrus is really just fulfilling another purpose, right? Even in this act of giving away those temple vessels, he's doing something else, and more on that in just a little bit, but hang on to that. The point is this, that Cyrus is still trying to prove that he's in control, that as the ruler, he makes the calls, not God, right? But we know that's not true. In fact, it's laughable historically to think of Cyrus. This man's rule would end within the decade, right? And here he is trying to maneuver and jockey for authority and position and power before the king of kings whose rule does not end. So that's Cyrus. That's

29:27 his response. That's only one type though. The other type of response is the one from the people of God in our passage. So we've already seen in verse 5 that they're stirred up as well. You see that there, just like Cyrus was. It's the same word, it's the same action on the part of God. But their response is entirely different than Cyrus's. It's not one of defiance. It certainly isn't one of trying to prove their power or authority before God. Now remember their situation again. They're captured people. Their homeland is in shambles when they last saw it anyway.

30:05 decades, even generations spent in exile in a foreign country. They have no power, but they have the promises of God that one day all of it would be restored. But that's really all they had. That's it for them. And even that hope must have felt like it was dimming after so many years, like it was perhaps nearly fully extinguished for some of them. But how do they respond? How do they react to the Lord's stirring? Well, they respond by choosing to believe that God's promises were true and that God, through that moment, through what was happening to them in that moment, in the midst of all their hardship, that he was keeping his promises. They chose to respond in faith, in other words. Like, that journey would have taken months.

30:54 It would have been dangerous. Some of them would have never even been there. In fact, so many of them would have never even been there. They don't even know what they're really going back to. And those that had been there surely would have had in their minds, seared into their consciences and into their memories, the image of a burned city as they were being dragged off by their captors. If they make it back, where are they even going to live? What are they going to eat? How in the world are they going to rebuild a life there? But those aren't the types of responses recorded for us in scripture. Those are not the types of things the people of God said or did or felt, at least not as we know it. Instead, we see hearts resolute on believing the Lord. We see hearts that trusted the cost of believing God's promises and saying, whatever risk it is to me, I'm going to take it and I'm going to do it because I believe God and I believe his word. So, friends, which one of these characterizes your typical response to the

31:55 Lord stirring? Are you like Cyrus, twisting circumstances, making sure that you come out on top, right? So you serve, perhaps, here in the church, but only to be seen. You speak of how great the Lord is, even, to other people, but only to impress that right person. You remind, perhaps, even your own hearts of all the promises that you love to remember, all the while rejecting the things that you know you should be doing from God's word. That's what Cyrus did. His only goal was to take the Lord's stirring and to turn it around for his gain. Or are you like the exiles here in this passage? Trusting the Lord and his promises, desiring to see him rightly worshiped, and following him in the face of tremendously difficult circumstances. See, that would actually get closer to the point of the passage that these people were being stirred by the Lord really as a result of his word going forth to them and they had to make a choice they had to make a

32:58 choice at that point are they going to trust him or not were they going to respond in faith or not it's true still today isn't it you have that same choice we have that same choice Christians here in the room, brothers and sisters, each one of you face an enormous list of circumstances that push against that moment of are you going to trust the Lord or are you not? Some of you in here have broken family relationships and you doubt that there will ever, ever, ever be reconciliation.

33:35 Some of you have poor health and you feel you'll never know your life now here on this earth again without that particular health battle. Some of you have jobs you can't stand and you'd do anything to have something else to do for a living. Some of you are simply struggling with your own sin battles to the point of exhaustion, and you wonder if you'll ever string together days of victory, let alone months or years. Some of you have just felt the sting of death. And you wonder how it could be true when the Scriptures say that death is swallowed up in victory.

34:11 And yet, to each one of us, every single one of us in those circumstances, We've been given the promise that one day the Lord will make our final redemption as his people clear to us. Right? Hold fast, brothers and sisters. Like these exiles in our story, remember God's promise to redeem his people even when it feels distant or dim. Even when it feels like there's no hope. And respond to him in faith. And yet amazingly, that same call to faith is extended beyond those who are currently Christians.

34:47 That same storyline of the Lord working to keep his promise to redeem a people, to bring them out of spiritual darkness and into spiritual light, it actually becomes fuller and fuller and brighter and brighter throughout the Bible until its completion in Jesus Christ. And what becomes evident throughout all of that is that all of us, that whether we're Christians or whether you are here in this room and you're not a Christian, the Bible makes it very clear that what's become evident is that every single one of us has sinned and deserves a final and complete exile, banished from the presence of God, punished for our rebellion against Him.

35:26 Like these exiles, but worse, because it's eternal. Friend, if that's you, know that the Bible speaks good news to you, That God sent his son, Jesus, and that was how he was fulfilling his promise, by sending the perfect son of God to live, die, and be raised on the third day, so that you can simply believe in him, turn from your sins, and become a part of that people of God. Like, that's how he's proclaiming to you that he keeps his promise today.

35:56 You simply need to respond like the people of God, and not like Cyrus. You need to trust him today. So the Lord stirs up Cyrus and his people, they both respond in different ways, but there's one more thing we need to see from the story this morning. We need to see how the Lord is keeping his promise. So number three, the third point for the morning, the Lord keeps his promise. You know, several years ago, I got to go check off one of the biggest items on my bucket list.

36:32 Believe it or not, before Greg went to Nepal, I went to Nepal. So I beat him there by a decade even. While spending that summer there in Nepal, helping teach English, sharing the gospel, one of the things that was on my bucket list was to see Mount Everest. Now, I did not get as close as Greg. He got me on that one. But I did get to see it. It is just breathtaking. Absolutely stunning. And the thing with places of beauty like that, though, You can search online for images of Mount Everest and probably get way cooler pictures than I got with whatever digital camera I had way back in the day, right? I'm sure it just was not a very good picture. You can even imagine what it looks like. But when you finally see it for yourself, when you finally experience it for yourself, it's just different, right? It's like the reality of that thing comes alive for you. It was true. It was there. Mount Everest was there before I saw it with my own two eyes, right, of course, but now it's coming to sharper relief. It has contours and

37:36 edges and colors, and I can see the jet stream and the way the clouds flow over it. I can imagine all of that because I've seen it. Well, the promise that the Lord would redeem his people was always true. It was even always true for these exiles living under the rule of a pagan dictator in a foreign land. But now, in this moment in our passage, now that promise is coming to life. It has colors and edges and contours, and they're seeing the promise unfold right in front of them.

38:12 Look, we come to a story like this, and especially chapter two and that whole long list of names, and we're tempted to breeze right through it. I'm sure all of you thought, please just stop reading. Let's just keep going. But here's the deal. This actually happened, right? There once was a group of exiles, historically, who moved back from a foreign land to Jerusalem to rebuild the temple, and that was the list of them. Those were the people. They were real people with real faces. This was how God's plan unfolded, and it was happening right there in that moment.

38:50 And I think there are two things we actually need to see as we think about that long list of names and even kind of prior to that, the very end of chapter one. So two brief things that we can see from this part of the passage and how the Lord is keeping his promise. Number one, there's a pattern that's being repeated. There's a pattern that's being repeated. So let's scale back out and see how the Lord is keeping his promise. Remember, he's promised to give his people land and bring them back to it and to redeem them. That's Jeremiah, right? That's Abraham, but especially Jeremiah, I'm going to bring you back to this land.

39:21 And yet here they are. Where are they again? They're in a foreign land being held captive. Then the Lord begins to stir in the heart of a pagan ruler, right, to release them, to send them back to their land. They didn't cause it. He had no real reason to want this, but it happens anyway. And then on their way back, what happens? Well, the people of God take vessels of silver and gold and goods and beasts and costly wares, and not just from one another, right? Look at verse 6. This comes from their surrounding pagan neighbors as well.

39:53 They're taking back the temple vessels in that. All told, an incredible amount of worth. But essentially what's happened there is that they've plundered their captors on their way out. And then they begin a journey back to the promised land. Does it sound familiar yet? What's this like? What should this remind us of? It's another Exodus, right? That same story of God's people from Exodus is being played out again here for us to see.

40:28 God is rescuing his people from their bondage, and he's bringing them into the land of promise and of blessing. And it's a pattern that we see played out multiple times in Scripture, even in the passage that Chuck read for us earlier from Matthew. And it's playing out right here before us. God rescues his people, and he brings them into a land of blessing where he is. But the second thing that we can see from all of that is this. Those names represent something. Those names represent something.

41:00 Like those specific names represent the Lord's faithfulness to keep his promise. It's no longer an abstract concept. It's not a promise kind of far out there. It's right here. it's happening for these specific people, that list that we read off. The Lord had promised in Jeremiah 29 that after 70 years he'd visit his people and he'd fulfill this promise to bring them back. That same promise, it's being fulfilled right then and now it has names and faces attached to it. Look, one of the points we're intended to understand as we read through this genealogy in particular is that there once was a large group of exiles who'd only known the feelings of punishment and abandonment while living in a foreign land. That was their entire experience.

41:51 But now they've set their hope on God's promises and they've acted in faith to believe those promises. They were called out of exile. They were brought back into the land. They're being delivered from bondage and into freedom. They're coming out of darkness. Like the scriptures tell us in the New Testament, and into light. Man, don't you want your name listed among those who've experienced that same type of thing? Well, in fact, the Lord has done that same thing for us, for so many of you in this room, in this part of redemptive history, in this part of how God is saving his people. He's bringing people to faith, and then the intention is that he's dropping them in where? Local churches. Local churches where they too can be named and known. They're real names and real faces attached to the ways that he keeps his promises

42:54 now. Names like Addison, Lynn, Eric, Macy, Dennis, Ginger, Tim, Brittany, Jorge, Emily, Logan Molly Lucas Callie Mac Jenny Micah Kelsey Look, all of those are names of members here.

43:32 Some of you, that's your name. I had you in mind as I write that. Those are names of members here who like those Jewish exiles millennia ago have been rescued from darkness and brought into the kingdom of eternal life. Friends, do you want to see evidence of God's promise to redeem his people? Look around. Are you struggling to remember God's goodness in your own situation, in your own hardship, in your own difficulty? Friends, find hope not somewhere out there, not somewhere in some sort of theoretical place. Find hope right here, right now, right here with this gathering of people and remember that the Lord has worked to save a people for himself.

44:14 Look, he's still working to keep that promise. He's still doing the same thing he did for those exiles so many years ago. In the uncertainties of this life, you don't have to go looking for proof of God's faithfulness to keep his word in strange or weird or mystical places. You simply need to look into the eyes of your brothers and sisters here and recall how he's worked to give them life and salvation when they didn't deserve it, when they had no way to earn it, And they had very little hope. And brothers and sisters, he's done the same thing for you. Look, we're not home yet.

44:49 We're not there yet. Like these exiles, though, we are headed to our promised land. To heaven, where one day we'll know that blessing of God for all eternity. Our God is faithful to keep his promise to redeem his people. And one day our faith in him will wonderfully be made sight. Trust him until then. Let's pray. Our Father, we thank you that you are a God who keeps your promise to save your people and to redeem your people.

45:26 God, we thank you that you've made it clear to us in the gospel how that happens, how we are to be a part of your people, how we come into that and how we stay a part of your people. We pray that you would cause our hearts to cling even more tightly to Christ today as we think about the fact that we've been rescued out of darkness and brought into light through him. We pray this in his name, amen.