Ezra 3

Ezra 3:1-13

THE INITIAL STEPSEzr_3:1-13.THIS third chapter presents a vigorous scene. The time for action had come. The “seventh month” was Divinely selected for this temporal and Spiritual movement.We may never know all the reasons for it, but the fact is familiar to all students of Scripture that seven, and ten, and twelve are God’s favorite numbers. In our land at least, the first month in the year is commonly looked upon as a favorable time for important movements or radical changes, but God commonly accepted the seventh, and not infrequently the tenth day of the month as a starting point for His enterprises. There is a power in periods. There are advantages in dates.

There are tides in time, in the employment of which comes fortune. The time of all times, however, is the one Divinely appointed.It is not left to men to choose just when they will undertake.

Even in the matter of salvation tomorrow is not acceptable. “Today” is the day. Woe to him who hears the voice, but hardens his heart.The movement here anticipated will prove progressive. There are at least three steps recorded in this chapter: The Altar First; the Forms of Worship, and the Laying of the Foundation.THE ALTAR FIRST“When the seventh month was come, and the Children of Israel were in the cities, the people gathered themselves together as one man to Jerusalem.“Then stood up Jeshua the son of Jozadak, and his brethren the priests, and Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, and his brethren, and builded the altar of the God of Israel, to offer burnt offerings thereon, as it is written in the Law of Moses the man of God.“And they set the altar upon his bases; for fear was upon them because of the people of those countries; and they offered burnt offerings thereon unto the Lord, even burnt offerings morning and evening” (Ezra 3:1-3).The erection of this altar involves the glorious assembly, the priestly leadership, and the defense of the fearful.The glorious assembly! “The people gathered themselves together as one man to Jerusalem”. What a suggestive statement! They did not get together to discuss, as debators assemble. They did not come together in solemn silence as people gather to a funeral; but they were brought together in a kindred spirit; their company was unified with a common desire, and inspired with a common intent or ambition.A dead church can scarcely assemble its people at all, and a divided church can never bring them together “as one man”.

People will not gather to do nothing; nor can a unity of spirit assemble those who have no other object than discussion and debate. It is when the crises of life come; it is when the great enterprise makes appeal; it is when the Divine voice has been widely heard, that men “run together”, drawn as by the magnet of a common movement.

That is why it happens that the most aggressive church is always the most united church. The church that undertakes the biggest things is the church that has the most enthusiastic membership. The church that dares the impossible is the church that engages least in petty discussion and discovers the least bitterness in its membership, but rather enjoys the highest enthusiasm of the big undertaking. Happy is that body of believers who come to the task Divinely appointed it “as one man”!The priestly leadership! “Then stood up Jeshua the son of Josadak, and his brethren the priests, and Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, and his brethren, and builded the altar of the God of Israel, to offer burnt offerings thereon, as it is written in the Law of Moses the man of God”.There are people who think that priests are little good when a great building enterprise is about to be undertaken. Such people reason that the spiritual and the material are inharmonious, and that the man who deals in spiritual things is not expected to know much on material questions. The priest, they think, is all right for the prayer part of the service, but is all ignorant on the building side of the same.

How absurd! How utterly contrary to all human history!

Go back through the two thousand years of New Testament Christianity, and see that the man who has guided in the spiritual affairs of God’s people has uniformly led also in their material accomplishments. It was once said that there has never been a reformation in Europe without a monk at the bottom of it, and it may be safely asserted that since the days of this temple, there has seldom been a church house constructed, whether an Old Testament synagogue or an ecclesiastical auditorium, that was not first imagined by the spiritual leader, and later made a substantial reality in answer to his Spirit-guided leadership.To be sure, the revelation and necessity of this plan came through Cyrus, the king; but Jeshua the son of Jozadak, and his brethren the priests, and Zerubbabel, probably the Levirate son of Shealtiel, and his brethren, were first in response to the king’s suggestion.An article in the Literary Digest a while ago, emanating from the pen of Bishop Freeman of Washington, wisely suggested the return of ministers to the main business of their lives, namely, a concern for souls. In that connection he said, “The modern complexity of church administration has brought the ministry to the breaking point. It has laid upon the shoulders of the church’s chosen leaders burdens too heavy to be borne. It has brought about a situation that has resulted in the impairment of the pastoral and prophetic offices. It has called for an outlay of time and money, the volume of which has mounted from year to year.

It has put the church in competition with secular agencies and placed it at a disadvantage it can not readily overcome. It has shifted the emphasis from a concern for souls to a concern for bodies.”This charge is entirely true; but it carries a concealed compliment.

If ministers had not proven themselves men of affairs and capable of putting over movements and institutions, this undesirable result would not exist; in fact, the result is not undesirable in all its features. We believe that the sole business of the Church of God is evangelization. We hold it is not its object to reform society or to undertake social and political reform; it is not even its business to educate. Its commission is clear: “Preach the Gospel”, and “baptize” in the Name of the Lord Jesus.But that sort of work cannot be done without having, as incidental fruits of the same, the very finest social consequences. Christianized society will demand schools for the ignorant, hospitals for the sick, and decent government in city life. The result is that the spiritual leader is forever the social reformer, the advocate of education, and the friend of all forms of decency.

Superficial men may despise him, but God forever sets him in leadership.But we find another fact looking out from this Scripture—the defiance of the fearful!“And they set the altar upon his bases; for fear was upon them because of the people of those countries: and they offered burnt offerings thereon unto the Lord, even burnt offerings morning and evening” (Ezra 3:3).That was an absolute affront to the brethren round about, and the people who gave that affront were afraid to do it lest the onlooker should pounce upon them and if possible drive them out of the land, but they were more afraid not to do it, for they knew it to be the command of the Lord. The hero is not necessarily the man who knows no fear; he is rather the man who knows the fear of God above the fear of his fellows.

The practical certainty is that every successful man could be the subject of God’s approval, and man’s hatred.An impression exists, with the public, that we have passed this Old Testament time; that we can do as one says, “erect a hundred churches in any of the chief cities of the globe, and the citizens will pay little heed to the fact that so many pinnacles are rising to the clouds”! But that all depends upon what kind of churches you erect! If you erect an ordinary church in an out of the way community, you will excite little enthusiasm on the part of believers and little opposition on the part of atheists and skeptics; but if you build a true temple of God at the city’s heart, and propose to carry forward in that place an aggressive work, you are certain to encounter opposition as bitter as Israel defied on the day of this decision.The public is never indifferent to the work of a Spurgeon, or to the existence of his tabernacle. A portion of it praises God for it and another portion hates and anathematizes the same. The Los Angeles public was not indifferent to the creation of the Bible Institute in that city. The true friends of Christianity rejoiced in that great building.

The advocates of Modernism and the agents of atheism growled against it, and when they found that that fact was not hindering, they shifted and sought to capture the same, just as they had captured Harvard and Brown and Andover and Rochester.The greatest single need of the hour is leaders who sufficiently fear the Lord to defy opposition, to dare great undertakings in the very face of the enemy, and to defy their worst. The fear of public opinion or of organized opposition is not excuse for failure in obedience to God.But we mark progress:THE FORMS OF WORSHIPLook into verses four to seven (Ezra 3:4-7), and get the following suggestions: They adopted the days Divinely ordained; they rested their worship on free will, and they paid their way as they went.They adopted the days Divinely ordained.“They kept also the feast of tabernacles, as it is written, and offered the daily burnt offerings by number, according to the custom, as the duty of every day required;And afterward offered the continual burnt offering, both of the new moons, and of all the set feasts of the Lord that were consecrated” (Ezra 3:4-5 a).They indulged in no novelties!

They didn’t originate ceremonies that they believed to be beautiful. They went to the written Word, and followed the instructions of the same. The feast of the tabernacles, burnt offerings—these were of God’s ordination. So should it be with every ceremony found in the church, one taught by His Son. Baptism is Divinely ordained. Christ Himself submitted to the same, and commanded it upon the part of others.

The Lord’s Supper Christ instituted, and enjoined upon His church, “This do in remembrance of Me”, and the Apostle, writing with the pen of inspiration, inspired us to its continuous performance when he said, “As often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do shew the Lord’s death till He come” (1 Corinthians 11:26).There are two extremes to be avoided in the matter of feasts and ceremonies. The one is the Roman error of creating a multitude that have back of them no Divine commandment, and the other is the Quaker error of sweeping aside, as of no significance, what Christ Himself instituted and commanded.Let Israel’s conduct here teach us to avoid both, and walk with the Lord in the way.They rested their worship on free will.They “offered the continual burnt offering, both of the new moons, and of all the set feasts of the Lord that were consecrated, and of every one that willingly offered a freewill offering unto the Lord” (Ezra 3:5).There is nothing more anomalous than a professed believer who practices no sacrifice of self; nothing more strange than a man who says he loves God, and yet, at the same time, refuses to give to His cause.

A portion of James’ Epistle seems to be inspired for the benefit of such: “Faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone” (James 2:17). A mere profession is a poor hypocrisy. Men who know the Name of the Lord, but make no contribution to His Church and cause are only self-deceivers. Their profession is a pretense, as their practice proves.There were times in Old Testament history when the people withheld more than was meet, and spiritual and temporal poverty resulted. There were other times when they brought all that was needed, and God’s blessing was uniformly poured out. The New Testament Church has kindred experiences that illustrate the same principle.

When its members give, they get; when they give, they grow, and when they give, they are ready to go to the uttermost parts of the earth, either in person or by proxy, as He shall speak.There are a good many altars on which the fires have died, and from which the smoke ascends no more, because the people who have created them have ceased to support them.The March 10, 1928, Literary Digest records some regrettable facts:Thirty-two per cent of all the Presbyterian, Northern Baptist, and Methodist Episcopal churches in the United States failed in the year 1927 to obtain a single convert to Christ; 3,269 Presbyterian churches, 3,474 Baptist churches, and 4,651 Methodist Episcopal churches went through the year without winning a single man to Christ!How tragic! And yet there is a report in the same magazine that is almost more tragic still.

It relates to a family church in Montclair, N. J. The church’s budget for the past year was $35,000. There are 408 families in the parish, and 145 of those families contributed nothing, notwithstanding the fact that in the 408 families there were owned and operated 431 automobiles, or more than one to each family. Analyzed, the following facts were found:Forty families pledged per year less than the cost of one tire.One hundred and nineteen families pledged per year less than the cost of two tires.Five families pledged per week the cost of two packages of “life-savers.”Seven families contributed per week the cost of one soda.Twenty-eight families, the cost of one admission to the movies.Forty-six families, the cost of a half pound of candy per week.Twenty-two families were content with the weekly gift of the cost of two and a half gallons of gasoline.Fifty-one families counted it a joy to subscribe weekly the amount that the men in the house spent for smoking.Forty-nine families pledged per week the price of one luncheon at a moderate restaurant.One hundred forty-nine families pledged nothing. They ignored their church membership, and permitted others who would, to carry the entire cost of the same.If this analysis were exceptional, the situation would not be so sad, but like the case of no conversions, it characterizes thousands of churches as perfectly as the one in Montclair.The temple here moved toward existence because the people willingly “offered a freewill offering to the Lord.

From the first day of the seventh month began they to offer burnt offerings unto the Lord. But the foundation of the temple of the Lord was not yet laid” (Ezra 3:6).They paid their way as they went.“They gave money also unto the masons, and to the carpenters; and meat, and drink, and oil, unto them of Zidon, and to them of Tyre, to bring cedar trees from Lebanon to the sea of Joppa, according to the grant that they had of Cyrus king of Persia” (Ezra 3:7).This is a good principle!

In spite of personal practices to the contrary, we believe that it is the principle that ought to be everywhere employed. As a leader in spiritual things, we have advised, more than once, debts, and sometimes large debts, and we have no apology to make for that advice, but we have ever grieved its necessity, and we have ever known that it was not necessary. If every member of the church would do his duty, debts need not occur, and as a rule, would not occur. The people that fail to respond to God’s will in this matter are the ones that compel their more sacrificial fellows to mortgage their future. We doubt if there is a debt on any house in America that would ever have been there had some members of the church sacrificed as did their more faithful brethren, and we are convinced that the common Roman policy of this matter is both economically and Biblically sound, namely, “Pay as you go.”“Owe no man any thing, but to love one another” (Romans 13:8).Why should our religion lag and our contributions be forever in arrears? Why should a man be willing to sleep at night, when during the day he has taken what did not belong to him; when, in fact, he has robbed God?

We fear that prayerless days often account for giftless days—days in which God is forgotten or those in which gold is withheld from His altar, and personal greed triumphs. But we dare draw nearer yet to the day when God’s house shall have its beginning:THE LAIDThe priests led in the building enterprise.“Now in the second year of their coming unto the house of God at Jerusalem, in the second month, began Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, and Jeshua the son of Jozadak, and the remnant of their brethren the priests and the Levites, and all they that were come out of the captivity unto Jerusalem; and appointed the Levites, from twenty years old and upward, to set forward the work of the house of the Lord.“Then stood Jeshua with his sons and his brethren, Kadmiel and his sons, the sons of Judah, together, to set forward the workmen in the house of God: the sons of Henadad, with their sons and their brethren the Levites” (Ezra 3:8-9).Jeshua, the priest, with his sons and his brethren, and Kadmiel and his sons, the sons of Judah, were spiritual leaders, and they together “set forward the workmen in the house of God: the sons of Henadad, with their sons and their brethren the Lewies”.Here again there is no occasion for surprise.

The seers, the men who visualize great enterprises, are commonly the men who lay their hand first to the task of bringing those enterprises into existence.I have known many an instance where the preacher, seeing the necessity, the utter need of a new and larger sanctuary, has said to himself, “Go to now, we will build the same. There is Mr. A., my millionaire member; I will make him the chairman of the building committee, and under the impetus of his arguments and the exhilaration of his giving, I will see my membership fall into line, and the enterprise will be carried over the top.”In nine cases out of ten, yea, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, such dreams are vain. The rich man, made chairman of the building committee, will discover reasons why such a plan is not feasible, and before you know it, he will have infected the entire congregation with indisposition, and set them an example of unwillingness.No; don’t depend upon your rich men when you go about God’s work. Look to God instead. Depend upon your spiritual men, men who sustain the relation of priests unto God, who have constant access to the Divine presence!

They are the only men who will ever put over anything. There has never been a bigger blunder, nor have churches ever suffered so much from any single departure from Scripture, as the blunder that proposes to create the diaconate after the model set down in Acts 6:3 : “Men of honest report, full of the Holy Ghost and wisdom”, and then to elect an altogether different company of the godless in which to take care of the trustees’ office and administer the finances.

That has been the ruin of thousands of churches and is the reason for the impotence of thousands of them at this moment. Why should the church forget or ignore the fact that the same men, “of honest report, full of the Holy Ghost and wisdom”, were the men Divinely appointed over the church business? My observation has been that a non-spiritual man in church office is a clog on the wheels of progress, or even worse, a broken cog grinding and tearing the very machine itself.Now, the prospect for this temple is good. Godly men are to the fore. That fills the future with promise.The priests also led in the singing.“And when the builders laid the foundation of the temple of the Lord, they set the priests in their apparel with trumpets, and the Levites the sons of Asaph with cymbals, to praise the Lord, after the ordinance of David king of Israel.“And they sang together by course in praising and giving thanks unto the Lord, because He is good, for His mercy endureth for ever toward Israel. And all the people shouted with a great shout, when they praised the Lord, because the foundation of the house of the Lord was laid” (Ezra 3:10-11).How suggestive!

It is a great thing to go cheerfully about God’s enterprises. Only the happy man is the man of strength.

Have you never noted how even your prize fighters who win championships are never disgruntled or morose spirits? It is reported that when Napoleon’s wagon was stalled in the snow on the Alps he ordered a stirring march played by the band, and under the inspiration of music, the very beasts did their best and conquered the mountain.It is practically impossible to build a house of God, or to put over any Christian enterprise, with grumpy or disgruntled men. They are in the way. They should be ordered out altogether, or sent about some other business as Gideon sent the thousands who were not eager enough for the fray to forget leisurely filling themselves. The cause had a better prospect. Give me a happy company of believers, and I will smite the word “impossible”, removing it from the dictionary.Finally, the ancients led in sounds of rejoicing.“But many of the priests and Levites and chief of the fathers, who were ancient men, that had seen the first house, when the foundation of this house was laid before their eyes, wept with a loud voice; and many shouted aloud for joy:“So that the people could not discern the noise of the shout of joy from the noise of the weeping of the people: for the people shouted with a loud shout, and the noise was heard afar off” (Ezra 3:12-13).It is doubtful if youth is capable of as deep and wide a joy as old men can know.

These dear fellows had seen the first house, and when it passed, had feared that its glory would never be repeated, but now the second and even greater is being started. Do you wonder that they shouted aloud for joy?I have often wished that those men who were approaching old age when I came to the pastorate of the First Baptist Church, Minneapolis, in 1897, might have lived to see the completion of the great new houses in 1923-1924.

I feel as certain as I am of reason itself that no joy of youngster could be comparable to that which those glorious men would have felt at the completion of these great fanes. I have an assurance in my soul that had that dozen men who bore the burdens and heat of the day in the old building, and passed away before the new was completed, been privileged to live until that day in April, 1923 and that 6th day of January, 1924, that when youth sang with enthusiasm the hymns of dedication, their happiness would have been too deep for participation in the same, and would have found expression in “shouts and weeping”, the noise of which would have been heard, and its meaning known, in Heaven.