author: Ryan Hayden Take your Bibles with me and turn to Ezra 4. Ezra 4. I think you are going to find the message tonight to be very interesting. I know I have.

In the first three chapters of the book of Ezra, King Cyrus of Persia send the jews back from exile in Babylon and tasks them with rebuilding the temple. They come back, led by Zerubabbel and Joshua and get to work. In chapter 3, they all come together and start rebuilding the Temple. They finish the foundation and they have a special service to celebrate.

During that service, along with the cries of praise to God come cries of wailing by the old-timers who miss the old Temple and do not believe the new one will ever be as good. That was my main message last week.

Let's pick up from there in Ezra 4. We are going to start by reading Ezra 4:1-5:

[!bible] Ezra 4:1-5 - KJV

1. Now when the adversaries of Judah and Benjamin heard that the children of the captivity builded the temple unto the LORD God of Israel;
2. Then they came to Zerubbabel, and to the chief of the fathers, and said unto them, Let us build with you: for we seek your God, as ye do; and we do sacrifice unto him since the days of Esar-haddon king of Assur, which brought us up hither.
3. But Zerubbabel, and Jeshua, and the rest of the chief of the fathers of Israel, said unto them, Ye have nothing to do with us to build an house unto our God; but we ourselves together will build unto the LORD God of Israel, as king Cyrus the king of Persia hath commanded us.
4. Then the people of the land weakened the hands of the people of Judah, and troubled them in building,
5. And hired counsellors against them, to frustrate their purpose, all the days of Cyrus king of Persia, even until the reign of Darius king of Persia.

Now, Ezra 4 is a weird chapter because it has a giant parenthesis in it.

Let me show you this timeline:

This is a timeline of the four kings of Persia that are mentioned in this chapter.

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Notice that you have Cyrus, he came to power (over Babylon) in 539BC. Then there was a gap for awhile and King Darius came to power in 518BC. Darius had a long reign, almost 40 years, then Xerxes had a 20 year reign and Artaxeres reigned for almost 45 years.

All of this is well established history. These are the same dates secular historians would use.

Now, let's place the events of Ezra on this timeline.

We know that the jews returned "during the first year of King Cyrus" so that would have been during 539BC.

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Then, the events of chapter 3 happen two years later, so we can assume they happened around 536BC.

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Now, look at chapter 4 verse 6.

[!bible] Ezra 4:6 - KJV 6. And in the reign of Ahasuerus, in the beginning of his reign, wrote they unto him an accusation against the inhabitants of Judah and Jerusalem.

Ahasuerus is another name for king Xerxes. So what this verse is talking about happens some time around 50 years after Ezra 3. !Pasted image 20241103161333.png Look at verse 7:

[!bible] Ezra 4:7 - KJV 7. And in the days of Artaxerxes wrote Bishlam, Mithredath, Tabeel, and the rest of their companions, unto Artaxerxes king of Persia; and the writing of the letter was written in the Syrian tongue, and interpreted in the Syrian tongue.

So now we are talking about something that happens in a whole other reign, it could be twenty or even 40 years later. !Pasted image 20241103161407.png

Ok, now look down at the very end of the chapter. Look at verse 24.

[!bible] Ezra 4:24 - KJV 24. Then ceased the work of the house of God which is at Jerusalem. So it ceased unto the second year of the reign of Darius king of Persia.

So this is dating this verse. The second year of king Darius. That's not at the end here. That's back here.

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And that means that everything that happens from verse 6 through verse 23 happens way later in time. It's like a big parenthesis in the story.

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Can you see that? So now that we know when verse 1 happened when they faced opposition and when verse 24 happened when they restarted the work, now we can zoom in and see what this message is about.

!Pasted image 20241103162013.png From the end of chapter 3 when they were praising God at the Temple foundation, until the end of chapter 4 when they restarted the Temple project there is a break of 14 years.

That is 14 years when the people were not doing what God wanted them to do. That is 14 years when the religious life of Israel that God wanted was not happening.

So I basically have two questions tonight: First, how do you go from this high mark of praising God at the end of chapter 3, to going 14 years of doing nothing in chapter 4? Or, Why did the work stop? Then, my second question is **What got them going again?"

So:

• Why did the work stop?
• What got them going again?

Let's start by talking about:

1. Why the work stopped?

Look at chapter 4:1 again:

[!bible] Ezra 4:1 - KJV

1. Now when the adversaries of Judah and Benjamin heard that the children of the captivity builded the temple unto the LORD God of Israel;

There were adversaries. Of course there were adversaries. God's work always has adversaries.

We tend to think that we should gain ground like explorers discovering America or Australia. We just walk there and it is ours because no one else is claiming it. But in reality, God gains ground more like the Israelites in the book of Joshua, where every inch is a battle and there are always adversaries. There is always opposition.

And so it was with rebuilding the temple. In this case, the opposition came in four different ways. Let's talk about each one of them:

Forms of Opposition

Criticism and Nostalgia

The first wave of opposition is what we talked about last week. It was internal. You might even say that it was benign. It was the nostalgic crying and criticism of the people of Judah.

They looked at the new Temple and said "it couldn't possibly be as great as the old Temple." and they wailed and whined about it. Never mind that that was what God was doing now. That this was God's work now.

We tend to give this kind of nostalgic whining a pass. We tend to think that it is benign. But it is not. It's exactly what the children of Israel did in the wilderness when they saw the promised land. "Oh, let us go back to Egypt! There are giants in the land! We can never do it."

The Egyptian army couldn't stop the progress of God's people. The red sea couldn't stop the progress of God's people. But a few whiners who had no faith absolutely stopped the progress of God's people for forty years and caused a whole generation to wander in the wilderness.

So I believe this is the first wave of opposition that came to Zerubbabel and Joshua as they tried to rebuild the temple. But this was just level 1. There were more waves coming.

False-Collaboration

The second wave of opposition we see in verses 2:

[!bible] Ezra 4:2 - KJV 2. Then they came to Zerubbabel, and to the chief of the fathers, and said unto them, Let us build with you: for we seek your God, as ye do; and we do sacrifice unto him since the days of Esar-haddon king of Assur, which brought us up hither.

Who is the "they" there in that verse? It is the adversaries of Judah. These would be mostly who we would call the Samaritan people - the people who had been left behind by Assyria and Babylon and had been living in the land in Judah's absence now for awhile.

They were living rent free, they were in control of things, and they weren't happy that the jewish people were back. So they were adversarial to them. But notice how they go about it - they go about it by offering to help. They say "let us build with you: for we seek your God, as ye do."

That sounds innocent. That sounds positive. But it wasn't. These people were either trying to undermine what they were doing or to influence it for their religion.

Notice the phrase there "for we do sacrifice unto him since the days of Esarhaddon king of Assur." Ok. Samarians. Where do you sacrifice unto God? Because the jews were only allowed to sacrifice unto God in one place and it was the Temple, and they had not been able to do that for 70 years.

So what these people were revealing was that they weren't really believers. They may have meant well. But they were either trying to undermine the project on purpose or were well meaning people who were going to be a bad influence on these believing jews.

And so, in verse 3 Zerubbabel and Jeshua say to them "no way. You have no part with us. You have nothing to do with us to build a house unto the Lord."

Well, as you can imagine, the Samaritans did not like that. They had their feelings hurt. So they instituted the third wave of opposition which we see in verse 4:

[!bible] Ezra 4:4-5 - KJV 4. Then the people of the land weakened the hands of the people of Judah, and troubled them in building, 5. And hired counsellors against them, to frustrate their purpose, all the days of Cyrus king of Persia, even until the reign of Darius king of Persia.

We've talked about:

• Criticism and nostalgia
• False collaboration

Now here comes the third wave:

Contention

Basically, verse 4 says they hired lawyers against the jews. They tied them up with law suits. This kept them from finishing the Temple for 14 years.

Now, these leaders were facing wave after wave of opposition to what God had called them to do and it seems like they just gave up. They focused on other things.

Which leads us to the last form of opposition that stopped the work:

Comfort and Complacency

Look with me at chapter 5:1

[!bible] Ezra 5:1 - KJV

1. Then the prophets, Haggai the prophet, and Zechariah the son of Iddo, prophesied unto the Jews that were in Judah and Jerusalem in the name of the God of Israel, even unto them.

I've spent a lot of time this week studying Haggai and Zechariah. These two books that were written during this time.

Haggia is short and it is all about the Temple. Zechariah is more about the spiritual condition of Judah. Both were a problem. But for the sake of tonight let's go back to Haggai 1.

Let's read verses 1-5:

[!bible] Haggai 1:1-5 - KJV

1. In the second year of Darius the king, in the sixth month, in the first day of the month, came the word of the LORD by Haggai the prophet unto Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua the son of Josedech, the high priest, saying,
2. Thus speaketh the LORD of hosts, saying, This people say, The time is not come, the time that the LORD’S house should be built.
3. Then came the word of the LORD by Haggai the prophet, saying,
4. Is it time for you, O ye, to dwell in your cieled houses, and this house lie waste?
5. Now therefore thus saith the LORD of hosts; Consider your ways.

Obviously, verse 1 lets us know who and what this book is talking about. It's absolutely what Ezra 4-5 is about. Same names. Same times. Same events.

So what does Haggai say? He says "God says that this people is saying 'its not the time, its not the time that the Lord's house should be built.'"

Listen, do you know what happened? When the people faced all of this opposition, their answer was "now is not a good time to do this." They couldn't possibly oppose the idea of building the temple. But they did question the timing of building God's temple.

And all of that sounds reasonable, doesn't it? "Now is not a good time" was their excuse.

So God asked them another question in verse 4. God said "If it isn't a good time for you to build my house, is it a good time for you to live in comfortable houses?"

That word "cieled" means "covered." It sometimes translated as "paneled." The idea here is that God's house wasn't done, God's house didn't even have walls, but the people's houses had wallpaper. The people's houses had panelling.

God was saying "it sure seems like a good time for you to finish your house, while mine lays waste."

What was going on? The people grew complacent. The people grew comfortable. They became focused on themselves. They made excuses. They got their priorities way out of whack.

And God saw write through it.

So the work of God stopped for 14 years. They went from this awesome dedication service to nothing for 14 years because of this opposition, this:

• Criticism
• False-collaboration
• Contention
• Complacency

It all added up to them doing nothing.

So that is what happened, but thankfully, it didn't stay like that. God stirred them up.

Again, Ezra 5:1-2:

[!bible] Ezra 5:1-2 - KJV

1. Then the prophets, Haggai the prophet, and Zechariah the son of Iddo, prophesied unto the Jews that were in Judah and Jerusalem in the name of the God of Israel, even unto them.
2. Then rose up Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, and Jeshua the son of Jozadak, and began to build the house of God which is at Jerusalem: and with them were the prophets of God helping them.

The people of God got back to work, and by the end of chapter 6 they are having a dedication service for the completed Temple.

So question one tonight was why did the people stop, question 2 is:

2. What got them back working?

There are four things I think we can see in scripture that got the people back to work - I'll go through these quickly.

The first is:

1. Punishment

You see that in Haggai 1. God brought punishment to the jews because of their bad priorities. Look at verse 6:

[!bible] Haggai 1:6 - KJV 6. Ye have sown much, and bring in little; ye eat, but ye have not enough; ye drink, but ye are not filled with drink; ye clothe you, but there is none warm; and he that earneth wages earneth wages to put it into a bag with holes.

Because they were more concerned with their own houses than God's house - God didn't allow them to prosper. God said everything they do is going into a bag with holes.

They couldn't get filled, they couldn't be satisfied - God controls that and God punished them.

The second thing God brought to get them working again was...

2. Preaching

So you had punishment, and with that punishment came preachers like Haggai who stood up and said "this is why this is happening to you - because you aren't doing what God tasked you with."

The third thing God used to help them get going again was...

3. Patriarchs

Again, Ezra 5:2

[!bible] Ezra 5:2 - KJV 2. Then rose up Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, and Jeshua the son of Jozadak, and began to build the house of God which is at Jerusalem: and with them were the prophets of God helping them.

Judah had leaders. Zerubbabel and Jeshua, who understood their purpose and got to work for God.

Finally, when the people started to obey the preaching, when Haggai and Zachariah's message started to take effect and the people got back to work, when they followed their God given leaders, then God encouraged them with the fourth thing...

4. Protection

Look at Ezra 5:5 with me:

[!bible] Ezra 5:5 - KJV 5. But the eye of their God was upon the elders of the Jews, that they could not cause them to cease, till the matter came to Darius: and then they returned answer by letter concerning this matter.

Did you catch that? The eye of God was on the elders. That's another way of saying that God was watching out for them. God was watching out for their work so that nothing the adversaries tried to do to them worked.

And we see that working out in the rest of chapter 5 and 6. They start working on the Temple again. They build it up, and the old adversaries come and say "who gave you permission to do this?"

And the governor of the area, a guy named Tatnai writes a letter to Persia with the names of all of these jews who are building the temple, essentially telling on them for building the Temple.

But it doesn't work out how Tatnai expects. In chapter 6 King Darius gets this letter, searches the thing out, finds out Cyrus was behind it and this is his reply. (Look at Ezra 6:7-8)

[!bible] Ezra 6:7-8 - KJV 7. Let the work of this house of God alone; let the governor of the Jews and the elders of the Jews build this house of God in his place. 8. Moreover I make a decree what ye shall do to the elders of these Jews for the building of this house of God: that of the king’s goods, even of the tribute beyond the river, forthwith expenses be given unto these men, that they be not hindered.

He says "leave them alone, and give them treasure to finish the work." That's not what Tatnai or the adversaries expected, but that is the kind of thing that happens when God's people are obedient to God's commands and doing God's work.

By the end of chapter 6 the Temple is dedicated. It takes them four more years. But they do it, then they celebrate the passover together with their new Temple.

And in the next chapter, they are going to have a national revival.

So what is the lesson for us? I think the lesson is that when we set out to obey God and do His work, we can always expect opposition, there is going to be criticism, there is going to be false-friends, there is going to be contention. It will always happen. We can't let that opposition make us complecent and use it as an excuse to not obey God.

If we are waiting for the best time - it will never come. That's not how life works. 14 years will go by, then 20, then 40. We have to obey God now and when we do, He will bless us and protect us.