God's holy and inspired word Ezra chapter 7 Now, after this, in the reign of Artaxerxes, king of Persia, Ezra, the son of Sariah, son of Azariah, son of Hilkiah, son of Shalem, son of Zadok, son of Ahithob, son of Amariah, son of Azariah, son of Miriath, son of Zerahiah, son of Uzzi, son of Buki, son of Abishua, son of Phineas, son of Eleazar, son of Aaron, the chief priest, This Ezra went up from Babylonia. He was a scribe, skilled in the law of Moses that the Lord, the God of Israel, had given. And the king granted him all that he asked for the hand of the Lord his God was on him. And they went up also to Jerusalem in the 7th year of Artaxerxes, the king, some of the people of Israel and some of the priests and Levites, the singers and gatekeepers and the temple servants. And he came to Jerusalem in the 5th month, which was in the 7th year of the king. For on the first day of the first month he began to go up from Babylonia, and on the first day of the fifth month he came to Jerusalem. For the good hand of his God was on him. For Ezra had set his heart to study the law of the Lord, and to do it, and to teach his statutes and rules in Israel. This is a copy of the letter that King Artaxerxes gave to Ezra the priest, the scribe, a man learned in matters of the commandments of the Lord and his statutes for Israel. Artaxerxes, king of kings, to Ezra the priest, the scribe of the law of the God of heaven, peace. And now I make a decree that any one of the people of Israel or their priests or Levites in my kingdom who freely offers to go to Jerusalem may go with you. For you are sent by the king and his seven counselors to make inquiries about Judah and Jerusalem according to the law of your God, which is in your hand. And also to carry the silver and the gold that the king and his counselors have freely offered to the God of Israel, whose dwelling is in Jerusalem, with all the silver and gold that you shall find in the whole province of Babylonia, and with the freewill offerings of the people and the priests vowed willingly for the house of their God that is in Jerusalem. this money then you shall with all diligence buy bulls, rams and lambs with their grain offerings and their drink offerings and you shall offer them on the altar of the house of your God that is in Jerusalem. Whatever seems good to you and your brothers to do with the rest of the silver and gold you may do. according to the will of your God. The vessels that have been given you for the service of the house of your God, you shall deliver before the God of Jerusalem. And whatever else is required for the house of your God, which it falls to you to provide, you may provide it out of the king's treasury. And I, Artaxerxes the Cain, made a decree to all the treasurers in the province beyond the river. Whatever Ezra the priest, the scribe of the law of the God of heaven, requires of you, let it be done with all diligence. Up to a hundred talents of silver, a hundred cores of wheat, a hundred baths of wine, a hundred baths of oil, and salt without prescribing how much. Whatever is decreed by the God of heaven, let it be done in full for the house of the God of heaven, lest his wrath be against the realm of the king and his sons. We also notify you that it shall not be lawful to impose tribute, custom, or toll on any one of the priests, the Levites, the singers, the doorkeepers, the temple servants, or other servants of this house of God. And you, Ezra, according to the wisdom of your God that is in your hand, Appoint magistrates and judges who may judge all the people in the province beyond the river, all such as know the laws of your God. And those who do not know them, you shall teach them. Whoever will not obey the law of your God and the law of the king, let judgment be strictly executed on him, whether for death or for banishment or for confiscation of his goods or for imprisonment. Blessed be the Lord, the God of our fathers, who put such a thing as this into the heart of the king, to beautify the house of the Lord that is in Jerusalem, and who extended to me his steadfast love before the king and his counselors, and before all the king's mighty officers. I took courage, for the hand of the Lord my God was on me, and I gathered leading men from Israel to go up with me. We turn then to Ezra chapter eight, verse 35, and we'll read to Ezra nine, verse four. At that time, those who had come from captivity, the returned exiles, offered burnt offerings to the God of Israel. 12 bulls for all Israel, 96 rams, 77 lambs, and as a sin offering, 12 male goats. All this was a burnt offering to the Lord, They also delivered the Cain's commission to the Cain's satraps and to the governors of the province beyond the river. And they aided the people and the house of God. After these things had been done, the officials approached me and said, the people of Israel and the priests and the Levites have not separated themselves from the peoples of the lands with their abominations, from the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Jebusites, the Ammonites, the Moabites, the Egyptians and the Amorites. For they have taken some of their daughters to be wives for themselves and for their sons, so that the holy race has mixed itself with the peoples of the lands. And in this faithlessness, the hand of the officials and chief men has been foremost. As soon as I heard this, I tore my garment and my cloak and pulled hair from my head and beard and sat appalled. than all who trembled at the words of the God of Israel because of the faithlessness of the returned exiles gathered around me while I sat appalled until the evening sacrifice. Amen, thus far the reading of God's word. Let's go to the Lord and ask for his blessing upon our time. Let us pray. Gracious God and Heavenly Father, would You rebuild us and our heart and our obedience to You. That Father, looking upon this, our history, our family's story from times past, from thousands of years ago, Lord, we would not be haughty nor proud that, Lord, You would humble us to understand the ways in which we go astray from You. and perhaps take comfort in outward structures. But Father, leave our first love behind. We leave you behind. Father, in this Advent season, as we begin the second part of Ezra, be with us. Bless us with hearts of obedience. Bless us to walk in newness of life. And Father, do all of this for your glory and honor and for our good, we ask in Jesus' name. Amen. Is it possible to say Merry Christmas and not know the meaning of Christmas? Is it possible to have a Christmas tree and hang up Christmas lights and give Christmas gifts as we will all do, nothing wrong with these things, and yet not understand the first thing about Christmas? Is it possible to live through this Christmas season and yet remain cold and distant to Jesus, our Savior? To not worship Jesus, eternal God, become man to save us from our sins? To go through an entire month as we are, December, today's December 1st, here we are, Advent's upon us, and yet not render to Him an obedient heart And of course, we know the answer to all of these questions. Yes, of course. And that's the lesson for us today, this morning. It is easier to rebuild a temple and an altar than it is to rebuild the heart of God's people. We can insist and perhaps we rightly practice all of these secondary aspects of Christmas and yet do we ever get to the heart of Christ taking a step back from Christmas? Let's think more broadly. We can focus on the outward structures of the Christian faith and yet all the while neglect Christ and our obedience to him. The structures of the altar and the temple, you see, were meant to correspond to Judah's worship of God and their devotion to Him. The outward structures of the altar and the temple were to be a visible sign of God's love. The people were to see the temple and know that God dwells in their midst and remember how He was true to His promise to return them to the land. They were to see the altar and the temple and know that they were to love God and obey His law and live lives consecrated to this One who had saved them. away from a life that would dishonor God and bring about His displeasure and His judgment. This was supposed to happen. The temple and the altar were to lead the people this way. Just like as we're inundated with Christmas, we're supposed to go to Christ. Our culture is supposed to go to Christ. And yet the reality is very different. And here then you see is really the one point in our sermon today. There are two points. We'll talk about Jesus Christ at the end. But the point is this, that the reality before God's people is that the temple has been rebuilt, the altar has been rebuilt, and yet the heart of God's people is still in ruin. Ezra 7 opens 60 years after Darius and the completion of the temple. So if you were to draw a timeline, we would say, of course, Cyrus comes first. He's the anointed shepherd of God, called such by Isaiah in his prophecy. He decrees the return of the people. back to Judah, to the land of Israel, Cyrus, and then Darius comes next. And after Darius comes a man named Ahasuerus or Xerxes. And Xerxes is the king at the time of Queen Esther. Queen Esther is ultimately wed to this Xerxes, to this Ahasuerus. So Xerxes comes or comes before chapter 7, right? If we were to have a chronological Bible, we would put the entire book of Esther between chapter 6 and chapter 7 of Esther. And here comes this offspring of Xerxes called Artaxerxes, and perhaps even a son of Esther and of Xerxes. We don't know. But he is the next king. And it's all 60 years after the completion of the temple at the time of Darius. And God, you see, is going to show the people their true state. He's going to put a mirror up to them in Ezra 9, which we just read the first four chapters of, through chapter 7. by emphasizing in chapter 7 of Ezra the importance of knowing his law in order to obey him, in order to thus love him. And he's going to emphasize the importance of his law through two men. through the actions of this pagan king and through the descriptions of this believing priest scribe named Ezra. Look at chapter seven, the entirety of the chapter. Let's just do a quick review here of what we've just read. At the end of chapter seven, verse 27, Ezra then picks up the narration here. Before it was in the third person. This is Ezra. He did this. This is who he is. This is what Artaxerxes did. But here in verse 27, it's Ezra's voice that's the narrator. And Ezra says that God put this thing into the heart of the king. God moves Artaxerxes to have a concern for God's law and for God's worship. And notice earlier in chapter 7, verse 11 and 12, Artaxerxes acknowledges that Ezra is a scribe of the law of the God of heaven, who is learned in the matters of the commandments of the Lord and his statutes for Israel. And then, verse 14, the king authorizes Ezra, verse 14, to make inquiries about Judah and Jerusalem according to the law of your God. In verse 18, the king says, use all the silver and gold that I've given to you, for what? For the worship of God in the temple, according to the will of your God. Do everything according to the will of your God. Do everything according to the law of God, this pagan king is saying. Verse 23, in regards, whatever is decreed by the God of heaven, let it be done in full for the house of the God of heaven. Lest his wrath be against the realm of the king and his sons. Don't disobey God's law. Do everything according to how God, the God you serve, O Judah, has decreed. Do it speedily, do it with all diligence. And then, astoundingly, look at verse 25. He says, You, Ezra, according to the wisdom of your God that is in your hand, appoint magistrates and judges who may judge all the people in the province beyond the river, all such as know the laws of your God. Appoint leaders who know the law of your God. And if there are leaders who don't know that law, look at verse 25. You shall teach them. You are to follow the law of God. And then verse 26, whoever will not obey, this is astounding, whoever will not obey the law of your God and the law of the king, let judgment be strictly executed on him. This is how important the law of God is. And this pagan king can see it, can recognize it, acknowledges it. Now, of course we know, history tells us that he's doing it perhaps for political reasons, and yet he decrees the obedience of God nevertheless. This is the importance of the law of God, such that a pagan king says, you must adhere to it. And then, as a result of God moving upon Artaxerxes, the king appoints Ezra. So it's not just this pagan king is pushing the obedience of God for political reasons. It's that now he has appointed a believer, Ezra, who is of the line of the priests, who is a scribe, perhaps one of the very few good scribes in all of Scripture. to teach the law of God to God's people. Notice how Ezra is described in verse 6. After delineating, you know, which Ezra, probably a common name, you know, which Ezra are we talking about? Well, it's this Ezra, who's the son of this guy, who's the son of this man, and so on and so forth. Verse 6. This Ezra went up from Babylonia. He was a scribe skilled in the law of Moses that the Lord, the God of Israel, had given. The king granted him all that he asked for the hand of the Lord his God was on him. God raises up this Ezra, who is a priest, who's a scribe, skilled in the law of the Lord. He is meticulous in his obedience to what God has revealed, to what God has said in his word. And Ezra had made a request of the king to be permitted to go back to Judah and to teach the people of God his law. And the king grants that request. And why? Why does Ezra make this request? Verse 10. For Ezra had set his heart to study the law of the Lord, and to do it, and to teach his statutes and rules in Israel. Here, here was an Israelite, a type of Jesus Christ who was so fully devoted to God, and concerned for the worship of God, and for the temple of God, and for the people of God. But more than all of this, what is Ezra's concern? But for the honor of God himself, Ezra thinks, how can God's people know God? How can they love God? How can they obey God if they do not know His word? If they neglect what is His clearly revealed will? And so, therefore, here is an unlikely tandem, a kind of odd couple, a pagan king and a believing priest who both show a diligence in keeping God's law. Yes, one for political reason, but the other for God-honoring reasons. And especially in Ezra, we see the heart of devotion to God. God must be worshipped with great urgency and with complete obedience. And here, you see, is the stark contrast God has been preparing for us to see now in Ezra chapter 9. We have on the one side, Ezra and Artaxerxes, a believing priest and scribe and an unbelieving king. And on the other side, God's people. And it's so ironic that this pagan king has more concern for God's law than the people of God themselves. Notice Ezra chapter 8, verse 35 and 36. They offer all of these animals, 12 bulls, 96 rams, 77 lambs, as a sin, offering 12 male goats. They offer it all up to the Lord as a burnt offering. They have come to God. They have come to the temple that was rebuilt, to the altar that was relayed, and they offer all of these animals to God. And yet, what is the great irony, beginning in chapter 9, verse 1 to verse 4, which we read? The people offer animals, but they haven't offered their lives. They haven't offered their hearts to God. The officials approached me, Ezra, and the officials said, the people of Israel and the priests and the Levites have not separated themselves from the peoples of the lands with their abominations. They have, in verse 2, taken wives for themselves. They have taken wives for, not only themselves, but for their sons from the Canaanites. And the leaders themselves have led the people into this sin. They have broken covenant with God. They have been faithless traitors to His goodness. They have given up in such a stark and graphic way the Christian faith. This is more than just having a mere love interest. This is, you see, being assimilated into the world, into the worship of idolatry and false gods, and taking on the thinking of the Canaanites, taking on the life of the Canaanites, taking on the values of the world. They have not loved God in the most basic of ways. The first commandment, you shall have no other gods before me. And then in verse three, what do we find? Ezra cannot believe what he's hearing. And he kind of staggers into a chair, and he's befuddled. He has a nervous breakdown for sure. And in verse 4 we're told that Ezra and others, they tremble, they're physically shaking at God's words because of the faithlessness of God's people. God had spat, He had vomited, He had cast out Judah out of the land because of their intermarriages, because they had intermingled with the Canaanites, because they had become as idolatrous as the people of the lands themselves. There had been no distinction between Judah and the Edomites, and the Amorites, and the Canaanites, and the Hittites, and the Jebusites. They were all one and the same. It's just that they worshipped Yahweh on Sunday, but during the week, they lived the same. And now, many years later, about a hundred years later, a hundred years later, no, 130 years later, Judah has done the same thing. They have fallen into the same set of sins that made God cast them out of the land. And this, of course, teaches us a very plain lesson, does it not, beloved people of God? That there are no easy victories. There is no complacency. There can never be complacency in this work of reformation. There can be no comfort in external religiosity, no peace with mere outward structures, no self-congratulations because the altar and the temple have been rebuilt. After 60 years from the completion of the temple, the people have drifted from their first love, from God Himself. They thought rebuilding the temple and the altar would perhaps solve all of their problems, or perhaps change their hearts. But they didn't realize that the hard work of rebuilding the altar and the temple should have led them to the more important and long-term work. Maintaining and cultivating their loving obedience to God. 60 years later, they've allowed their children to marry Canaanite women. They've adopted the values of Canaan, and they've taken false comfort in the altar and temple. We're good. We're good. We have the altar and the temple. What can so possibly be so wrong with us? Judah has rebuilt one set of ruins only to leave another set of ruins in place their heart The people themselves need to be rebuilt. This is a hard work. And there is a second lesson here for us, which is the temptation, the temptation that we find. It's easier to rebuild the temple than it is to offer your heart to God. It's easier to rebuild an altar that you can put animal sacrifices on. than to be a living sacrifice that is offered to God daily. It's easier to reduce Christianity to showing up on Sunday, to having the correct opinion on a number of issues, to perhaps having a worldview, to having the right liturgy. It's easier to do that than it is to live for God. It is easier to do all of those outward things than it is to obey His Word and do what God commands when we feel like it and when we don't feel like it. You see, it's easy to think and to live as if we could outsource our love that we owe God, our obedience that we owe God to something or someone else. God will be pleased with me, not if I offer my life, but if I give an extra sum of money to the church, or if I do X, Y, Z, fill-in-the-blank thing or action. No, Christianity is never, never, fundamentally, about things. Christianity is about things, but only as a secondary derivation of the essence of the faith. Christianity is about a person. The person of Jesus Christ. His life, His incarnation, His death, His resurrection, His work of salvation that takes God's wrath on, which we deserve, and covers our sins. Christianity is fundamentally about the person of the Father who sent graciously his Son into this world for our sins and for our salvation. Christianity fundamentally is about the person of the Spirit who is sent by the Father and by the Son who takes the life of Jesus and applies it to our lives by uniting us to Jesus. And then Christianity is not only about the three divine persons, but it's about you and you and me being transformed by the triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, to now live for God, to now obey God, to now live a transformed life. We cannot take comfort in a temple, in an altar, if we have not given to God, and if we are not giving to God, obedient, loving hearts. And there is, of course, a political side to this discussion, of course. We read in Deuteronomy 6 words that will be repeated over and over in Deuteronomy. Take care. Take care, lest when you come into the land, that God has given you, and you receive cisterns you didn't hewn, vineyards you didn't plant, houses you didn't build, good things, good things, blessings of the Lord, and yet you take comfort in them and forget God. There is a temptation in our new political moments to be complacent and to think that all is well with our country because of political and even religious spiritual advancements in our outward structures because we've achieved some level of societal good. And I know we all believe this. We're all on the same page here, but we need to hear it again. If the borders are closed, If wokeism is banned, if transgenderism is made illegal and prohibited, if some level of manufacturing is returned to our country, if we return to the gold standard, if we make America healthy again, if the Department of Justice is cleaned up, if government waste is gotten rid of, no plastics in food, no chemicals in vaccines, listen, I'm talking to you. I'm talking to us. These are all good things. Sign me up for every one of them. And I receive them as a blessing from the Lord. But is this it? Is this the essence of Christianity? The essence of the Christian faith is not outward structure, outward religious ritual, nor political public policy. People of God, you can have all of those things and still be lost. I want those things. And the Christian faith gives us both of those things. But take care, take care, God says, lest you forget him. No, people of God, we are in need of a deeper reformation, not simply a reformation that builds outward structure and Christian culture. We need, rather, the reformation of the heart, a renewal of our love and of our obedience to God and his law. And this then, secondly, as we conclude, is what Jesus Christ has come to do in his incarnation. Not merely to write down His tablets, His law in tablets of stone, but to write them upon the hearts of people and the people of this land. Christ rebuilds our ruined hearts. And this is, you see, what we celebrate in Advent. Jesus Christ was born to save. Jesus Christ was born to bring men out of darkness and into His marvelous light to change our heart of darkness and give us now what? a heart of obedient love to him. In a moment, we'll sing number 297. Lift up your heads, ye mighty gates, the fifth and sixth stanzas. We prayerfully sing these words. Redeemer, come. I open wide my heart to thee. Here, Lord, abide. Let me thy inner presence feel, thy grace and love in me. Reveal, renew me with your grace and love. So come, my sovereign, enter in. O King Jesus, enter in. Let new and nobler life begin. Thy Holy Spirit guide us on, on, until the glorious crown be won. We return to those initial questions we began with. Is it possible to say Merry Christmas and not know the first thing about Christmas? Yes. But here's the graciousness of God in the Christian faith. As Christians, we don't engage in a false dichotomy, but we hold on to both. We hold on to both the outward structures that God has commanded and the inward reality together. We rebuild the outward altar and temple, and we seek the loving obedience of Christ from our hearts, in our families, in our communities. We say, Merry Christmas, not because it's the culturally right thing to do, But because we know the Savior, Jesus Christ, because we know God incarnate, God of very God who has come into this world to save sinners like us, who has freed us from the power of Satan, who has forgiven us the record of debt that stood against us, we put up a Christmas tree, we hang Christmas lights, Because Jesus Christ, the light of the world, has come into this world. The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light. Those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them has light shone. And we give gifts to our loved ones and to one another because God the Father has given us the gift of his Son. And his Son, Jesus Christ, freely gives eternal life in his person. and in his work to all of his people, to all who believe in his name. Amen. Our Father and our God, help us. Help us to, Father, not neglect you in this Advent, Christmas season. Help us, Father, to work not only for the outward structures of altar and temple, but more importantly, More than this, and more importantly than this, to be renewed, Father, in the inner man, to trust you and to love you. To, Father, cultivate a love for Christ in our families, in our children, however young or old they may be. To, Father, seek the obedience of Christ from the heart, from a regenerate heart, in our communities and in this land. Hear us for these things we ask now. In Jesus' name, Amen.