The book of Ezra chapter 8. We're going to read a brief passage from verse 15 through verse 23. Ezra chapter 8, And I gathered them together to the river that runneth to Ahava, and there abode we in tents three days. And I viewed the people and the priests, and found there none of the sons of Levi. Then sent I for Eliezer, for Ariel, for Shemaiah, for Elnathan, for Jerob, and for Elnathan, and for Nathan, and for Zechariah, and for Meshulam chief men, also for Jerob, and for El Nathan men of understanding. And I sent them with commandment unto Iddo the chief at the place of Cassaphia. And I told them what they should say unto Iddo and to his brethren the Nethanims at the place Cassaphia, that they should bring unto us ministers for the house of our God. And by the good hand of our God upon us, they brought the sons of Mali, the son of Levi, the son of Israel, and Cherubiah with his sons and his brethren, 18, and Hashebiah, and with him, Jeshia, of the sons of Merari, his brethren and their sons, 20. Also of the Nethanims, whom David and the princes had appointed for the service of the Levites, 220 Nethanims. All of them were expressed by name. Then I proclaimed a fast there at the river of Ahava that we might afflict ourselves before our God to seek of him a right way for us and for our little ones and for all our substance. For I was ashamed to require of the king a band of soldiers and horsemen to help us against the enemy in the way, because we had spoken unto the king, saying, The hand of our God is upon all them for good that seek him, but his power and his wrath is against all them that forsake him. So we fasted, and besought our God for this. And He was entreated of us." Amen. The Lord will add His own blessing to the reading of His own precious Word for His name's sake. I thought tonight as we came to pray that we should consider the statement that Ezra made to the Persian king The hand of our God is upon all them for good that seek Him. Verse 23. Get the words in our hearts. Get the words in our head. Let them sink into our consciousness that we can remember them, quote them, lift them up to God in prayer. The hand of our God is upon all them for good that seek Him. The truth in that text is simple, but it's striking. Those who seek God will have His hand upon them for good. That's the simple, direct teaching of this text. Those who seek God will have His hand upon them for good. Obviously, the key word in the text is the verb, seek. And the surrounding context in this book of Ezra will tell you definitively what he means by seeking God. Again, it's a word that's so simple, The seeking is far from simple. It sounds so easy. But seeking God is not easy. If you go back to chapter 7 and verse 6, you'll find that this kind of seeking is born out of a love for and a study of the Word of God. We read that this Ezra went up from Babylon. He was a ready scribe of the law of Moses which the Lord God of Israel had given." Verse 10 makes further reference. We'll look to it in a moment. But there is a definite emphasis in the life of Ezra. He was a scribe and he was a seeker. He was a man of the Word. He was a man of prayer. Those two things can never, never be divorced. Seeking God can never have its birth merely out of the human desire of the heart. Seeking God can never have its birth merely out of the pressure of circumstances or of need that is forced upon you. How often have we ourselves been in this position, and how often have we seen others? That calamity comes, crisis comes, and immediately they try to seek God. And the heavens are as brass. There is no way through. I have had calls from people. I have had transatlantic calls from people in distress. I have referred at times in preaching to one call from a young man who knew what my wife and I had been through in a certain set of circumstances, and they were going through the very same. And he had heard how God had answered prayer and buoyed us up and carried us through. And he came on and he said, We are facing this. It could mean death. For my wife, we're praying, we're seeking. We can't get through. There's no word from God. The Bible is a closed book. The heavens are closed. The ear of God seems deaf. Can you help us? We can't get through." And the reason was not difficult to find. Their Bible reading consisted of reading as little as possible, as late as possible in the day. So that on another occasion he, and he had forgotten, he had told me this. He said, I would open up my Bible just before I go to sleep, for I knew I had to read my Bible sometime in the day, and I just hoped it would open to Psalm 117. The shortest chapter in the Bible. Now trouble comes. It seems easy to seek God, but it's not easy to seek God. Seeking God is something that is born out of a love for the Book of God. It is born out of a submersion of your soul and your mind and your heart in the Word of God. You see, prayer is a two-way street, believe it or not. The end of Isaiah chapter 40. They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings as eagles. They shall run and not be weary. They shall walk and not faint. Wonderful promise we take for the man of prayer who's waiting on God. He's seeking God. The very next chapter starts with the words, Keep silence before me. I always think the conjunction of those texts is very, very deliberate. Keep silence before me. Because before we can ever speak to God, God first has to speak to us. Now, I'm not saying in the moment of crisis you can't cry to God immediately and get an answer. You can. But way before that, there's a time when God speaks to you. True seeking is born out of the love for and study of the Word of God. It's produced as the result of that study by a diligent preparation of the heart. Verse 10 of chapter 7, Ezra had prepared his heart to seek the law of the Lord and to do it and to teach in Israel statutes and judgments. When you're studying the Word, it's not just to fill your head with a wee bit of extra knowledge. It's not just to satisfy a guilty conscience. I've read my Bible today. When you come to this book, it is that you may prepare your heart before God. That the book of God will have an effect upon your heart. That there is a sanctifying effect of this book. Where what you read comes into your experience. I'm going to push again. If you haven't been using it, I'm going to push it very hard again, our little leaflet on the Ten Commandments of Bible study. It's not there because I needed something to write or we needed something to fill the shells. It's there because it's vital for Christians to know how to take a chapter of the Bible. There are many other ways to study the Bible other than the one we're recommending here. But how to take a chapter of the Bible, read it, and transpose it into a prayer life. How to take what you read in the Bible and see it effectively change your heart and change your life. So, this kind of waiting and seeking comes from a diligent heart preparation. You cannot have your heart engaged with the world. And then be able to seek God just like that can't be done. The Christian is to live. In a specific sphere and atmosphere, if you want. The air he breathes is not just the air of this world that's physical. Spiritually, he's in the heavenlies, the heart prepared. That's where you learn to seek God. This seeking of God is evidenced by a deep faith in the absolute sovereignty of God over every earthly power and circumstance. Chapter 7, verse 27. Ezra prays, Blessed be the Lord God of our fathers, which hath put such a thing as this in the king's heart, to beautify the house of the Lord which is in Jerusalem. Now remember what he's talking about. He's talking about one of the strangest things in ancient history. And that was the mild policy, the enlightened policy, of a heathen monarch toward the house of God in Jerusalem. Now, you could be grateful to the king. But Ezra saw this mighty monarch, he saw what he was doing, and he recognized that his heart is in the hand of the Lord. He recognized that it was the Lord who put this in the king's heart. The king gave the command, and if you read, you'll see the letter that he wrote to the governors around the city of Jerusalem. But it was the Lord who put it there. Now, when we come to seek God, there has to be a confidence. I've often said that prayer is not the cry of desperation, except in the sense that we have no hope in ourselves. But the word desperation is a cognate of the word despair. Remember, they're twins. Prayer is not the counsel of despair. Except you mean you despair of yourself. The root of the word desperation is a Latin verb that means to hope. And desperation is hopelessness. Literally. Now, if your prayer is a hopelessness, if it's simply beating the air, if it's simply saying words, and you have no hope, it's not seeking God. We've got to see that God is sovereign. There may be a king on the throne, or a president in the White House. There may be this thing happening, the other thing happening, but we come to pray It has got to be with the absolute confidence, the one to whom we are coming, the one whose name we are invoking, is the one who is absolutely, all-powerfully, sovereignly in control. This prayer is accompanied by a grateful spirit of praise, as we have read in chapter 7 verse 27. Here's a big difficulty when you're seeking God. You look out in front of you and there's so much yet to experience. There's so much yet to accomplish. There's so much to be gained that we come to God and we are constantly crying for what we need. And seldom do we really stop to think and look at what He has given us already. You can be so consumed with the present and the future crisis that you lose the spirit of grateful praise for what the Lord has done. Jim Trestle, the football coach of Ohio State, just days after he had won the national championship, I think it was 2003 they won that, was congratulated on the great job he had done in Ohio State, winning the national championship. He was already out on the road looking for new recruits, and he said, in this job, the question is, what have you done for me lately? In other words, this national championship could be forgotten. if next year goes down the tubes. And you know, we all suffer from that kind of ingratitude. The Lord has done great things for us. Never let us forget we're not in hell. And I've often said that anything more than hell is great mercy. For I should be in hell. So should you. I deserve to be in hell. And so do you. But I'm not in hell. Nor am I going to be in hell. So God hath done great things. Now as well as saving us from hell, you think of how He has done it, at what price He has done it. Think of the giving of His Son. Think then of all He has given us in Christ. Think of all the blessings that He has heaped upon us. Think of the things He has done thus far. Never let us lose the sense of gratitude. Never let the crisis of the moment darken our minds and take away the praise for other things. Waiting or seeking the Lord ultimately aims at the restoration of God's work for God's glory. Chapter 7 and verse 27 again. He speaks of beautifying the house of the Lord which is in Jerusalem. Why was Ezra going up to Jerusalem? He was going there, as we're told earlier in the chapter, he was going there in order to set the house of God in order and to get the people right with God and to see the glory of God restored. In Jewish history, Ezra is looked upon as second only to Moses. He's looked upon as the second Moses. In fact, quite a bit of the canon of the Old Testament was probably put together, and there's good reason for saying that, by Ezra. He was the second Moses. And there is this driving compulsion in Ezra's ministry, the restoration of the worship and the work of God's house. The restoration of the glory. Remember I said on Sabbath day, Ezekiel portrayed the receding glory. Well, Ezra, and this came to pass by the way if you read the surrounding scriptures, as the house was built and the worship was re-established, The glory returned. And that's a wonderful theme in scripture. The glory revealed. The glory removed. Now the glory returned. That's the aim of seeking God. In other words, Ezra had many things to pray for. And he did pray for them. He had many circumstances that he needed to pray about. He had many personal needs that he needed to pray about. But the overriding thing in seeking God is not to be wrapped up with health and wealth and here and now. Now don't misunderstand me. Those are perfectly legitimate matters for prayer. But why should God answer to touch our bodies unless it glorifies Him? Why should God meet our physical or financial or material needs unless it glorifies Him? In other words, even in those things, the aim of seeking God has got to be a vision for the restoration of the glory of God among His people. And that's got to be the burden of our prayer meeting. We're here to pray for many things. But ultimately, there is only one thing that matters, and that is the demonstration of God gloriously among His people. If we have that, we have everything. If we don't have that, we have nothing in answer to prayer. As a church, we have nothing. This is it. This is what it is to aim to seek the Lord. It's to aim at His glory. In chapter 8, you'll find that this seeking of God deals with the flesh. Verse 21 says, There I proclaimed a fast at the river of Ahava, that we might afflict ourselves before our God, to seek of Him a right way for us and for our little ones. and for all our substance. They were on a dangerous journey. They were carrying a lot of silver and gold and precious things. They were a sitting duck for the enemy and enemies there were a plenty. And so what did they do? They sought the Lord. How did they seek him? We proclaim the fast to afflict ourselves before our God. What does that mean? It means what Paul meant in 1 Corinthians 9, 27, I keep under my body. I deal with the flesh and in so far as the physical body is an instrument of expressing flesh I deal with it. But this whole thing that was happening by the river Ahava was taking time before God, seeking Him, before we set out on this mighty ministry and this powerful mission that's going to change the whole history of the children of Israel, before we set out on this, we must get God to deal with our flesh. Brethren, nothing has changed. What's the biggest enemy of the work of God in this house? The devil? Not at all. Don't misunderstand me. The devil's an awful fool, and he can cause us awful problems. But he's a defeated fool. And I do not believe in this evangelical dualism where God and the devil are fighting it out and we're not quite sure who's going to win. I don't believe in that. The Lord is victor. But what stops us having the victory that the Lord gives over the devil. What hinders us from that victory over Satan? What hinders us from victory over the world? What hinders us from having spiritual power? What hinders us in our evangelism? What hinders us in our praying? What hinders us when we come to read the Bible? What hinders us in our family life? What hinders our fellowship in church life? What stands between us and the outpouring of the Holy Ghost? And the answer in every case is flesh, flesh, flesh. It's your flesh is your big problem. It's my flesh is my big problem. And that's why he says we're seeking God. to deal with the flesh. See why I say seeking God is not just some easy, pat little thing where you come and you go through a ritual and a rigmarole that means nothing to God, man or devil. Seeking God is no such easy thing. Seeking God is getting down to real spiritual business. Verse 23 of chapter 8 This is the thing that God answers. This is the kind of seeking that gets an answer. So we fasted and besought our God for this. And He was entreated of us. So we fasted. We afflicted the flesh. We had God deal with the flesh. You will notice this. They stayed by that river, if my memory's right, for three weeks. You're not going to deal with the flesh. I've made a decision. My flesh is dealt with. That's it. There may be a crisis where you're going to have to repent of particularly known sins and have God deal with them. And there's a moment of pardon and a moment of restoration. But you're going to fight the flesh. And you're going to have to overcome the flesh. And this dealing with the flesh is not a matter of just a moment or two. It's a lifetime. And you're seeking God. Now here's the promise. I never got to the part I thought I was going to speak on tonight, by the way. But maybe another time, maybe not. We'll see. This is the proclamation of faith. The hand of God is upon them for good that seek Him. Speaking of those who worship in spirit and in truth, Jesus said, the father seeketh such to worship him. I don't think I'd be pushing it too far to say the father is seeking his children who will seek him in this way. Here's the challenge. We either pray or we play. one or the other. I trust tonight we'll get down to praying. A lot of things about the flesh are personal. You're going to have to get through to God, cry to God to deal with those. But this night let us give ourselves that We will have that moving of God in our hearts to love this Word, to get this Word in our soul, even what we have studied tonight, that God will use that to prepare our hearts, to sanctify our hearts, to purify them from all iniquity, to give us a confidence in the absolute sovereign power and grace of God, to give us a single eye to His glory, an aim, a vision, a burden for the restoration of God's presence and power in our midst. This is the way ahead for this congregation. And I'm laying everything on the table before you. I'm telling you, there is no other way ahead. We either get God to come here in power, or we're out of business. One or the other. There is no middle way. Oh, we can exist. Thousands of churches exist, but the candlestick has been long removed. Christ has gone. Well, I don't know about you. I have, and I tell the Lord this constantly, I have no desire to spend my remaining time on this earth defending what God won't defend, promoting what God won't promote, seeking to establish what God won't establish. I have no desire to be in any work unless God is willing to be in it too. Let's understand this. We're willing to seek Him. He's willing to be found. Let us seek Him, therefore. There's much to pray for, but most of all, Lord, make us seekers. Beyond that, Lord, let your hand be upon us. As I say, I may come back to discover a little more with you or discuss a little more with you what that really is all about. Let the hand of God be upon us. That everybody in heaven, everybody who will see it on earth, and even the very devils of hell, when they look at what is happening in this church, will have to say, that is the hand of God. That's what I'm praying for. I don't know about you, but I am tired. I'm sick, sore, and absolutely fed up with man-made lookalikes of the blessing of God. The real thing isn't there, so preachers manufacture something that looks quite like it, get people excited, and they're happy with the fraud. But it's still a fraud. We need to have something that is demonstrably incontestably the hand of God. Let's ask for that tonight. Moving in many ways, doing many things, but never let us lose this burden for His glory, the salvation of sinners. That's how He's glorified. I, even I, am He that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine own sake. It glorifies God to save sinners. Remember, for all eternity, the greatest boast, if I can use the word that God makes to principalities and powers, is when he points to the sinners he has saved and brought them into union with Christ. So let's ask God to do this. Is he able? He is able. Will we seek him? That's the question. Now we go to prayer and you can give God the answer.