Old Testament overview we have been through quite a bit and we are considering this evening it would help if I turn this on we are considering this evening the final writings the final writings And what are those? Well, Esther, Ezra and Nehemiah. Of course, that's not the order they appear in your Bibles. But I have a reason for covering them in that order this evening. I just think that's a better chronological order as we are considering what is really a countdown to the New Testament. And since we are talking about that, I'm also hoping to talk about the intertestamental period which is that period, of course, between the Testaments. So let's do some review and some introductions. We are thankfully not talking about 12 books tonight. That was a lot to go through last time, so much so it was worth taking a couple of weeks off to pause and recover and reflect. But it was also interesting to take a look at the minor profits all at once. And as I said, it took probably several weeks for us to just do an overview of the minor profits when we did our study a few years ago. And then we packed all that into one evening. That was that was definitely a lot there. But we are going to be focusing just on that latter end of what would have been covered with the final couple of minor profits, excuse me there. This would be the post-exilic period. The post-exilic period. And so that would be that period that's covered by the 12, of course, it's all collected within that period. It's a period really that begins at the end of Daniel's life. Daniel sees the end of the exile, and that then leads into the post-exilic period. And so that's what we're going to be talking about, and that's really where these three books that we're going to be talking about this evening find themselves. They find themselves in the post-exile. And so what are we talking about with the post exile? Well, as we know, the Babylonian Empire came in and they are the reasons that there was an exile, right? They're the ones who came in and took away the Jews from Jerusalem, from Judea and brought them over into Babylon. But Babylon did not stand forever. It found its end with the Persian Empire. And of course, that's recorded in the Book of Daniel. And it's under the Persian Empire that the Jews are finally allowed to return home. Why were they there for so long? Well, if you'll remember, among other things, they had failed to keep their yearly Sabbaths. And I believe it was for about 490 years that they did not do this. They were supposed to let the land rest once every seven years. And so they were in captivity for 70 years, and so the math should work out on that, right? They were out of the land so that the land would rest in that time. And this was part of God chasing them for not keeping his ways. It wasn't just because they weren't keeping the Sabbaths, but that was one of the reasons that he gave. If you will look to Jeremiah, Jeremiah 29, we will see this prophecy that was given. This is a prophecy that Daniel will later look back upon and many of the exiles would look back upon for hope. And that's exactly why God gave this prophecy. Yes, the Lord gave bad news. There is coming an exile, but then he gives us good news. For thus says the Lord, Jeremiah 29 10, when 70 years have been completed for Babylon, I will visit you and fulfill my good word to you to bring you back to this place. For I know the plans that I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for calamity, to give you a future and a hope. Can't tell you how many times we were at a graduation ceremony and we heard Jeremiah 2911 quoted there. And every time Heather would get very aggravated with me because I was like, oh, I didn't know they were in the Babylonian captivity. And this is this is wild that that they just came out of the Babylonian captivity. This is great. This is much bigger news than them graduating high school. Sean, stop. All right. All right. I will. But of course, we do use that verse as an encouragement. Of course, yes, the Lord does does love the Christians. He does love the church. But this was a specific prophecy for the Israeli or Israelite exiles as they are in Babylon. to know that they can come back one day, that God will not leave them there forever, that God will, in fact, rescue them and bring them back home. And so that's what the primary application of that verse was. And of course, we see this again in Second Chronicles. Second Chronicles. Thirty six. Today's reading, that's right, the McShane Bible reading. This was today's reading, the final reading. 2 Chronicles 36, 21. We could begin in 20 really those who had escaped from the sword. He carried away to Babylon and they were servants to him and to his sons until the rule of the kingdom of Persia to fulfill the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah until the land had enjoyed its Sabbaths all the days of its desolation. It kept Sabbaths until 70 years were complete. And so there it is. And so the land rested while they were outside of the land. The land was not being worked and the land was not being polluted with their sin. Well, what do what do we see with this fulfillment that Second Chronicles describes? Well, in 538 B.C., Cyrus the one who came and conquered Babylon and that's an interesting story in and of itself where he drained the river and was able to go in under the gate and conquer Babylon basically without a battle. He not only conquered Babylon. He then gave this decree because God called him out by name through the prophet Isaiah He gave this decree for the people to return and that of course is also recorded here in 2nd Chronicles We just keep reading here in verse 22 now in the first year of Cyrus the king of Persia in order to fulfill the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah. The Lord stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia so that he sent a proclamation throughout his kingdom and also put it into writing saying thus says Cyrus king of Persia. The Lord the God of heaven has given me all the kingdoms of the earth and he has appointed me to build him a house in Jerusalem, which is in Judea. whoever there is among you of all his people may the Lord his God be with him and let him go up and so there it is he conquers Babylon And then he releases the people. And so that's what we see here in in the post exile. And it's incredible to see how God orchestrated that, because you would think, OK, in conquering King, he has all these ready subjects. Why would he want to let them go? And yet the Lord worked it out to where he desired to let them go back and worship their God, a God he hadn't known of before this. And so it's incredible how God worked this out in his providence. Now, it's under this empire, the Persian Empire, that Esther comes to prominence. And then, of course, we have the we have the books of Ezra and Nehemiah. But let's talk about Esther first. Let's talk about Esther first. Let's turn now to Esther chapter four. Esther chapter four. And verse 14, Esther 4.14, this is Mordecai giving that famous advice to Esther. For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance will arise for the Jews from another place, and you and your father's house will perish. And who knows whether you have not attained royalty for such a time as this. This is a book full of God's providence. This is a book full of irony, of drama. I love this book. This is a great book right here. And we see God's hand all over it, which is very interesting. And I'm going to tell you why that is specifically interesting in just a moment. But what what time frame are we talking about here? Well, we are talking post-exile, as I said. And so this is after the Jews are allowed to go back home. But Esther is in Persia. This is the year 483 to about the year 473 BC. And if we are looking to place this somewhere in the canon, we would have to place it somewhere between Ezra 6 and 7. Ezra 6 and 7, that's about where this would fit. Esther is called forth as the as a candidate and then later as Queen to King Ahasuerus, Queen King Ahasuerus. And if you look in your history books, you might say, OK, I can't find a King Ahasuerus there. That's because this is a Hebrew pronunciation of the. of the Persian name, which is Xerxes. This is King Xerxes the first who reigned from about 486 to 465. If you are unfamiliar with him, you might know him. Through popular media, for instance, he was the one who would face King Leonidas and the 300 there at the pass. And no, no, no, Xerxes did not look like that. That was just made for dramatic effect. But very interesting historical figure, obviously. And and he did expand out the Persian Empire. But that is not the interest of the Book of Esther. That's not it at all. And so it's interesting to see how God is working in this. And this is what we see profit or preservation through Providence. God is working through Esther and through Xerxes to preserve the Jewish people because of a plan by the Amalekites, by Haman and then by the Amalekites. The outline of the book just basically two parts here. You have the try the threat to the Jews and chapters one through four. And then you have the triumph of the Jews in chapters five through ten. And so you have Haman's plot there to try to wipe out the Jews. Of course, he doesn't know Esther's a Jew yet, but but he doesn't like Mordecai. And so he's he's He had a long going beef being an Amalekite with the Jews. He says, All right, this is my chance. I'm just going to wipe them all out. And the irony there is that the Amalekites actually get wiped out in the book. And so God uses this. God uses the events in Persia of these exiles to bring about his purposes for protecting his people. And so we see, of course, Mordecai's triumph over Haman and then Israel's triumph over over his enemies there. Some interesting features here, this book records the start of the Feast of Purim. And it includes the prophesied end of the Malachite. This is something that God promised, and it's only fulfilled here in the Book of Esther. Now, this book is full of providence, as I said, so it's interesting that the name of God is absent from this book. You don't find The name of God, you don't find Lord, you don't find any of that here in this book. You also don't find mention of Jerusalem. You don't find mention of the temple. You don't find mention of the law of prayer. There's fasting, but so maybe it's hinted at there, but it's not stated. So this leads us to some interesting questions how God is working in this book. Is this a message about the spiritual state of the people in exile? These are some of the people who didn't return maybe. They were not worshiping the Lord as they should. And yet what do we see with the Lord? His faithfulness to his people, even if they're all of that, he's working behind the scenes unnamed. It's amazing how God does that. He does that in our lives. We don't always know. It doesn't always say God was here whenever God does something in our lives. Right. It's just up to us to see that and to recognize that sometimes. And that's something that we see with Esther. Yes, of course, God's at work behind all of this. We read this book and we come away with no other conclusion. And yet we don't find his name anywhere. Well, the people weren't necessarily praying, this isn't a situation like with Daniel, where he's praying three times a day with the windows open. We're not seeing any of this, yeah, toward Jerusalem. We're not seeing any of that. Does this not show us the faithfulness of the Lord? When He makes a covenant promise with His people, He means it, and He keeps it, despite what we see. So yes, one of my favorite books, I love this book, Ezra is the next book that we want to consider. We have to go to the left. So as I said, I'm doing these a little out of order. Right before Nehemiah. And let's go to Ezra. We could really read almost all of Chapter 1. I'm tempted to do that. We have the full decree of Cyrus there in verses 1 through 4. But we'll just look at verses 5 through 8 here. after the decree of Cyrus verse 5 then the heads of the father's households of Judah and Benjamin and the priests and the Levites arose even everyone whose spirit God had stirred up to go and rebuild the house of the Lord which is in Jerusalem All those about them encouraged them with articles of silver, with gold, with goods, with cattle, and with valuables, aside from all that was given as a free will offering. Also, King Cyrus brought out the articles of the house of the Lord, which Nebuchadnezzar had carried away from Jerusalem and put it in the house of his gods. And Cyrus, king of Persia, had them brought out by the hand of. Mithridates, the treasurer, and he counted them out to sheds as are the prince of Judah. He doesn't keep all of the stuff. Which is fascinating to me, once again, he's letting these people go. He's letting the the treasures go. You know, he has certainly been moved by God here to do this. And so that's what we see with Cyrus's decree. The people initially go and we see that initial Exodus, if you will, back from exile back into the land in 538. And this book goes from there until 458, 458. What's the theme of Ezra? It's the rebuilding of the temple and the people. When we get to Nehemiah, we're going to see rebuilding there as well. But that's of the walls and of the city. This is of the temple. And so what's first, what should be built first? The temple, the temple should be built first. Because why? Well, why have they been in exile this whole time? They haven't been worshiping the Lord. Why have they been sinning? Because they've been involved in idolatry. What should be their first priority when they come back to the land? Rebuilding the temple. And so that's exactly what we see here with Ezra. That's what we see with Ezra. Ezra the outline here we have two returns in Ezra the first one is under Zerubbabel so you have the return and reconstruction under Zerubbabel and we'll sometimes refer to that restored temple as Zerubbabel's Temple and that's why because he was the one who started that effort in 538 BC So the return and reconstruction under him and then as I noted before between chapter 6 and 7 there's a 57 year gap where Esther fits and So Esther can fit in nicely right there Esther doesn't quite span that entire gap obviously, but but she can fit in right about there and then we have the second return under Ezra the return and reform under Ezra there is now that the reconstruction has been done under Zerubbabel now there needs to be reform and that's done under Ezra and that's in chapters 7 through 10 and that's in 458 BC Now, when we're talking about Ezra here, this is interesting because Ezra and Nehemiah were probably one book at one time. And as we look at the outline here, okay, we have Zerubbabel and then we have Ezra. When we get to Nehemiah, we'll talk about Nehemiah, but then we'll get back to Ezra. And so it's interesting to see, okay, Ezra is sandwiched in there. And then we'll get back to Nehemiah at the very end there. But these probably were one book, these two books. So as you're reading Ezra, just kind of keep that in mind that it's looking forward to Nehemiah. That's why so many of the themes that you see in Nehemiah are the same as you see in Ezra. Ezra records the decreed return of the Exiles as we talked about the foundation of the temple is laid and completed with much ceremony in Chapter 3. The Samaritans tried to get involved there. And when we get to chapter 4, we see that they rejected chapter 4 verse 3, but Zerubbabel and Jeshua and the rest of the heads of the father's households of Israel said to them, you have nothing in common with us in building a house to our God, but we ourselves will together build Lord God of Israel as King Cyrus the king of Persia has commanded to us." And that was actually a good thing because the Samaritans had been involved with a syncretistic kind of religion. Yes, they wanted to claim that they still worshiped Yahweh, but they did not. And if Zerubbabel and the rest of them had accepted the help of the Samaritans at that point, the worship of the temple would have just went back to the same kind of idolatrous worship it was involved in before the exile. And so it was actually good that they rejected the help of the Samaritans there. The Samaritans actually needed the leadership of these people who are returning with humble hearts and with a devotion to the Lord so that they would then repent and return to the Lord fully themselves. We see Ezra's approach to ministry in chapter seven, let's take a quick peek over there. Ezra seven. chapter 10 or chapter 7 verse 10 now of course verse 9 says the good hand of his God was upon him and that's the first important thing that we see for ministry but then what do we see with Ezra he had set his heart to study the law of the Lord and to practice it And we start if we're ever looking for candidates for ministry, it starts there, right? If they don't care about studying the Bible and maybe they do care about studying the Bible, but they don't care about putting it into practice. These are not people we should be looking for for ministry, right? This is actually a good model right here. He had set his heart to study the law of the Lord and to practice it. And not only that, but to teach his statutes, that would be God's statutes and ordinances in Israel. And so he wants other people to know the word of God. And so that right there is a good model for us. If we're looking for a biblical model for ministry, chapter seven, verse 10 there, Highlighted that that's a that's a good one right there. So that's Ezra's approach to ministry and then of course He has to deal with people coming back. They had married into paganism and he deals with that in chapter 10 and Advises them on how to how to repeat from that Key dates, I just threw these up here, 538 Cyrus's decree, we talked about that, 536 would be the first return undesirable. So there's not a big gap there. The decree goes out and people start packing up their things. Two year window is actually a very good window right there. All right, so we've got to put our We got to get ready. We're going to be moving the big journey to go back to the land of promise, right? So we have to prepare for that journey. We have to bring the things that we need. So they get all that ready. They get all their affairs in order and their bank accounts closed out. And you know, the mail address is forwarded to where that needs to be. And then they set out. and they returned to the land. And so within two years of that decree, you had the first return under Zerubbabel, which means that it's an organized return too, which is good. Then in 516, we have the temple completed, and that's in chapter six there. It's mentioned. Let's take a peek there. It says that they finished it in 613, and then the elders of the Jews were successful in building it through the prophesying of Haggai. So there we see Haggai and then Zachariah is mentioned there. The temple was completed, verse 15, on the third day of the month of Adar, the sixth year in the reign of King Darius. And so the people came together, they celebrated. And we see that that they that they use this as an opportunity to worship. Of course, they are getting back to the to to the worship that God had commanded them. They offer up their sacrifices. They then turn to observe the Passover. And so they are doing what God had commanded them to do. And yet there is still need for reform. That's why Ezra comes now Nehemiah. Kind of picks up from there and let's turn all the way over to Nehemiah 8. Nehemiah 8 because we see Ezra ministering in Nehemiah, as I said. Nehemiah 8, of course, Ezra is going to read from the law. Let's start in verse 4. And again, we see more models for ministry as are the scribe stood at a wooden podium. All right, very good. And so there's some more ministry modeling there. He stood at a wooden podium, which they had made for the purpose. and it describes who stood next to him. Verse five, Ezra opened the book and the sight of all the people for he was standing above all the people. Preachers don't stand up high because we think we're better, but so that people can hear, right? And that's the purpose of it, so that we can speak to everybody and so that everybody can see as well. He was standing above the people, and when he opened it, all the people stood up. And sometimes you'll see that in churches too, where they actually ask the people to stand for the reading of God's word. And that was something that was modeled as well. Verse six, then Ezra blessed the Lord, the great God, and all the people answered, amen, amen, while lifting up their hands. Then they bowed low and worshiped the Lord with their faces to the ground. And then other people remained in their place. Verse eight. Note this. They read from the book from the law of God. Translating it or explaining it. Some some translations say explaining. Others say translating. To give the sense or or to give insight. This is expositional teaching here. This is where we get that idea. We take the text, it's not in a language that's familiar to the people anymore, and so there's translation that's happening, there's explaining that's happening, and the idea is that the people are to understand the reading. That's why we engage in the kind of teaching that we do, where we take the text and we open it up, and we say this is what the text says, And this is what the text means. We we give the translation or the explanation, and then we give the sense. And that's the idea there. So there's so much being modeled here. And this is exactly what the Lord would have of his people. He would have them to open up the text and to explain his word in this way so that it's understandable to all the people. Part of it was because a lot of them the same language. Not necessarily, they probably knew some of the language, but not as much as they would have stayed in Israel. Right, exactly. I mean, if you imagine any people group, let's say, you know, migration, you have some people who maybe come over and they migrate legally to this country and they come from any country, it doesn't matter the country, but they have a native tongue, but they come and they stay here and they live here for a generation or more. They might remember some of the words of the old country, but they it's going to be lost because now they're used to speaking this new language of this new country. And that's that's exactly what was happening to them. They had lost a lot of the Hebrew. And that that that just increases as as we go into the Hellenistic period, the period when Alexander the Great was going and conquering the world. Everyone became Greek speaking. And more Hebrew was being lost. And so that at that point, they just translated the Bible into Greek because they needed that that help for so many people. But yeah, that's exactly what we should be doing. It is not a sin to take the Bible. and translate it into the language of the people. That's something that has been taught by, say, Muslims, for instance. You're not supposed to study the Koran in English. If you're an English speaker or any other language, you're supposed to study it in Arabic, because it's not the Quran unless it's in Arabic. That's what they teach. God's Word is powerful enough to remain to be God's Word, even in a translation. That's why I can say to you, take your copies of God's Word, even though it's not in Hebrew and in Greek, it's in English. because it still remains to be God's Word. It's a translation. It's there to give you that sense. And sometimes it's not perfect, but it is still God's Word and it is to be obeyed. And so that's why that's why we do that. This happened, of course, between the years 445 and 424 BC. It's counting down, getting very close here, about 90 years after Zerubbabel. And so that's where Nehemiah comes. This is yet another coming here. And he is focusing on rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem and again, reforming the people, rebuilding the walls and reforming the people. What's the outline of this book? Well, we focus here on rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem in chapters one through seven. But then, as I said a few minutes ago, we get back to Ezra. Ezra chapters or Nehemiah chapters eight through 10 focus on Ezra. But then we get back to Nehemiah in chapters 11 through 13. And so that's that that's the basic breakdown here. You have the rebuilding of the walls, then you have the revival of the people, and then you have the reinforcement of the work. And so that's how the book breaks down. Just a couple of notes here, a different king is mentioned in this book. It's not Ahasuerus, it's Artaxerxes. And that is actually the son of Xerxes I. The son of Xerxes and Vashti. Who's Vashti? Well, she was the first queen who got kicked out and is the reason why they were looking for a new queen and Esther comes up. So Artaxerxes is the stepson of Esther. And that's who Artaxerxes is. This book is often taught as a book on leadership. It may be, yes, that there are some good leadership principles here, but that is not the main thrust of the book. The theological significance of the book of Nehemiah is God's sovereign undeserved faithfulness. That's what this book is about. It's not about how to be a good leader or how to rebuild the walls in your life, you know, some of the trite little purpose-driven sermons that some people come up with, or, you know, how do you run a church-building campaign, which sometimes churches will do. Let's have our Nehemiah campaign. This book is about God's sovereign and undeserved faithfulness. And so not only now has the temple been rebuilt, now the people are protected because the walls are rebuilt. They're back in the land. They're protected and they don't have to worry about all of the troubles that they had to worry about before. And that brings us pretty much through the entire Old Testament. That is it. So I think unless I've made a grave error somewhere, I've hit every book of the Old Testament. I did notice one study that absolutely missed a couple of books. It's like, oh, how did you do that? And then I missed a book on a study years ago, and I was like, oh, that's how you do that. But anyway, what do we do after this? Well, we moved from Nehemiah into the intertestamental period and as I said, that's the that's that period between the two testaments between the Old and New Testaments roughly the year 400 to to the year four or so BC. We could give or take a couple of years on that. There are some debates as to where exactly we want to put that, and we could also debate you know, with some of the people who are alive, like Herod the Great, exactly where we want to put that marker there. But that's about where we are looking when we're talking about the intertestamental period. And it's that blank space in your Bibles between, well, between Malachi, really, and Matthew. It's noteworthy that during this period we see the end, not of the Babylonian Empire, because the Babylonian Empire is already ended, but the Persian Empire. And then we see the Persian Empire replaced by the Grecian Empire. And then we see the Grecian Empire end, and we see that replaced by the Roman Empire. And then by the time we get to the New Testament, it's not the Persians, it's not the Grecians, it's not The Babylonians, certainly it's the Romans who we are seeing ruling the area. And so that's that's the missing history here. And it is a time without profits. Why do we not have a book that is that is written during this time period that is authorized by God, that is inspired by God? Well, because it is a time without profits. God said that this would be it. that the next event would be the coming of Elijah, which was, of course, John the Baptist, if they would have accepted him. And that's that's what they were to be looking for. They weren't to be looking for anything else. So it was a time without prophets. It was a time without the visible glory of God. We mentioned that last week that the visible glory of God doesn't reappear until until when the angels. up here to the shepherds on that night. Some of the history that's recorded there is recorded in some of the what's known as Deuterocanonical books, Deuterocanonical books, the Apocrypha for short there. Catholics don't like it when you call it the Apocrypha. But it is not necessarily an inspired selection of writings, but it is helpful because we do see some of the recorded history there, like, for instance, the Maccabean Revolt. And so that is recorded there. And we do have the time period predicted. in the book of Daniel. It's predicted most pointedly in Daniel 11, Daniel 11. Now we do not have time to really dig into that. In fact, I did a whole sermon a few years ago. I don't know if you remember that on Daniel 11. And we looked at that and it was a very difficult study because there's so many names So many, so many dates and so many places to keep track of. But I wanted to try to give you just some of the overviews tonight. And you can try to follow along here if you want to. And Daniel 11, Daniel 11. Remember, of course, this was written. long before the intertestamental period, but it was predictive of that period. This is one of the reasons why people look at Daniel and they say, there's no way, there's no way that this was written beforehand because it predicts everything so perfectly and so to a T, but that is just God saying, I am protecting you during this time period. You have three kings, which are mentioned in Daniel 11, two. And that is, well, you can see the three kings there, Cambyses and Smyrdas and Darius. Three kings who have nothing to do with Christmas, but they are three kings that are highlighted there. A fourth ruler, which is richer, Xerxes, who we've talked about, Ahasuerus of Esther. And then we have in verses two through four, the rise of Alexander the Great, the one who will do as he wills for the next decade. This, by the way, is not the only place in Daniel, which which we have the coming of Alexander the Great predicted. But it is predicted there. Then in verses five through 20, we have the Grecian Empire described there. It is divided among Alexander's generals. If you remember your history after Alexander died, it would be divided. The Book of Daniel focuses on two of those, the Ptolemies to the south, and the Seleucids to the north. And so those are the two Daniel focuses on. And we see a back and forth between these verses, verse five and 20, the king of the north, king of the south. And there's this back and forth. It describes the various Syrian wars, second Syrian war, third Syrian war, fourth Syrian war. And it goes on and it describes in detail what's happening in these conflicts. Daniel then also predicts how these battles will progress and eventually involve these upstarts from this little, weird peninsula. This weird group of Romans, where did they come from? Well, they actually begin to rise to power in this very period as the Ptolemies and the Seleucids are going at it back and forth. One of these men has taken capture or is taken captive by the Romans. He then returns. He then attacks this was Antiochus Epiphanes. He is predicted in verses 21 through 35. A lot is dedicated to him considering how much. Generalities, in a sense, is given for the rest. We cover a couple of hundred years and then we just slow down and focus on Antiochus Epiphanes. And that's because of all of the evil that he enacts against the Jews. Of course, a lot of this back and forth the Jews to feel oppression through all of that. But in tightness provides the worst of that and take us the fourth year. And scripture then uses Antiochus in verses 36 of 11 versus 36 through 45 to shift from Antiochus to talk about the coming Antichrist. And so at the end of Daniel 11, we get a glimpse of the Antichrist. And that then leads into Daniel chapter 12, which gives us a glimpse of the rest of the end times. And so that's where Daniel ends. So God gave all of this ahead of time so that the people would know what to expect in general and they would know that he is protecting them. And so it's just incredible to see how God fulfilled all of that. So that is a lot of history there. Where do we move from the Old Testament and then the intertestamental period just seems logical for me to just say, all right, let's do a new