Obeying God despite opposition

Footnotes

[1] 4:7 Hebrew written in Aramaic and translated in Aramaic, indicating that 4:8–6:18 is in Aramaic; another interpretation is The letter was written in the Aramaic script and set forth in the Aramaic language
[2] 4:14 Aramaic because the salt of the palace is our salt

Hugh Stephenson

Good morning, Rachel! Thanks for this devo. Absolutely love this from you: “Instead of believing they were supposed to be happy about the new foundation, the old men in Jerusalem believed they could be honest before God and before other men. How convicting! Instead of faking joy, they praised God for His goodness and love, and they mourned. And God saw fit to make sure that these displays of emotion made it into His Holy Word.” Q1. Hard Circumstances? This is a HAHA question because the answer is “all of them”. Seriously, the toughest is unsaved prodigal children. Multiple prayers a day for their salvation. After that I’d say distractibility. Way too many choices of how to spend time. My constant prayer is the for the Spirit to show me only the BEST yes. Even so, I still get lots of choices but His guidance is more and more present. Q2. Hard tragedy? The big one is the deep family crisis that finally hit the wall in the fall of 2002. Complete meltdown. By God’s design and sovereignty, we were invited to Watermark by our older son when he was in Dallas for a weekend. We dove into re:gen, Prodigal, and abortion recovery. We been here ever since. Q3. Performing holiness? Like everyone else, I don’t bat 1,000 on this. But I am clear that His sanctification is ongoing. Q4. Grief in private? A recent pastoral exercise conveyed to me that I have a ton of unprocessed grief. Not just in private space but all over the place. I am thankful for tangible means to dredge that sorrow up and process it with the direction of the Spirit. Q5. Tension between grief and joy? First answer that come to mind is when the Rangers won the World Series. But then the baseball season is over!!! In reality, when my mother died in 1980, my dad in 1999 and my sister in 2005, I was terribly sad. It’s part of the sorrow in Q4. But their last years were horrible and very difficult. I was glad they were out of pain.

Hugh Stephenson

Here is a provocative question. What is the single most powerful force in all of the universe? I’m sure there are lots of answers that will make a ton of sense. For some of you all, it might be profitable to stop reading this comment and give some thought or discussion. I’ll give my answer below. For now, here are some links to people and items of interest from GQ and Bible Project. These are great go-to places for overviews. ————————————————————————————- Protection - https://www.gotquestions.org/protection-of-God.html Presence - https://www.gotquestions.org/presence-of-God.html Provision - https://www.gotquestions.org/God-provides.html Overview of Ezra-Nehemiah https://bibleproject.com/explore/video/ezra-nehemiah/ The Temple https://bibleproject.com/explore/video/temple// The Exile https://bibleproject.com/explore/video/exile/ Zerubbabel - https://www.gotquestions.org/Zerubbabel-in-the-Bible.html Zerubbabel and the signet ring - https://www.gotquestions.org/Zerubbabel-signet-ring.html 2nd Temple - https://www.gotquestions.org/Zerubbabel-second-temple.html ——————————————————————————————— Ok, back to our question. For what it’s worth, here is my answer. Yours may be different. For me, the most powerful force in the universe is the presence of God. Exodus 40:34 is an immensely happy verse. I can imagine the people weeping for joy. Ezekiel 10 describes the glory of God leaving the temple many years later. I can imagine the people weeping with sorrow. For me the key verse passage in these two books is verses 11-13 and the focus point is the weeping of the old men. So loud was it that it mixed with the shouts of joy. “11 And they sang responsively, praising and giving thanks to the LORD, “For he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever 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. 12 But many of the priests and Levites and heads of fathers' houses, old men who had seen the first house, wept with a loud voice when they saw the foundation of this house being laid, though many shouted aloud for joy, 13 so that the people could not distinguish the sound of the joyful shout from the sound of the people's weeping, for the people shouted with a great shout, and the sound was heard far away.” From the ESV SB Notes - Ezra 3:10–11 “…all the people shouted with a great shout. The laying of the foundations occasions praise, which echoes the celebrations of King David when he prepared for the building of Solomon’s temple (cf. 1 Chronicles 16, esp. vv. 7, 34, 37). Ezra 3:12–13 “But many ... wept with a loud voice. Sadness is mixed with this rejoicing, for some of the very old remembered the former temple and believed that this new one would not match the former temple’s glory. The picture of mitigated celebration is a small symbol of the whole event of the return, which was in itself a triumph yet fell far short of the great hopes the people might have had (cf. Hag. 2:2–9).” From Constable, same passage – “The old men who had seen the first temple (v. 12) may have been those who were taken to Babylon in the third deportation, in 586 B.C., and now returned, in 356 B.C. For them the Exile would have been 50 years long. Some of them, however, may have been even older, having been relocated to Babylon earlier than 586 B.C. As then so now: Some people choose to weep because things are not as grand as they once were while others choose to rejoice because the future looks bright.”

Hugh Stephenson

So, it’s very though provoking. What was the emotion that was creating such an intense sorrow. These verses come to mind as starting thoughts- God’s admonition to Cain – “If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must rule over it.” Genesis 4:7 Moses’s admonition to the people - “But if you will not do so, behold, you have sinned against the Lord, and be sure your sin will find you out.” Numbers 32:23 And Paul on sexual sin – “Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body.” 1 Corinthians 6:18 The writer of Hebrews – “But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called “today,” that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.” Hebrews 3:13 And lastly, Ravi Zaccharias. “Sin will take you farther than you want to go, keep you longer than you want to stay, and cost you more than you want to pay. ” The first four verse passages are my go-tos. But it’s the last one from Ravi that is the gut punch. (I know Ravi has been discredited in my many ways but there are still great insights the Lord gave to him.) Back to the presence of God- The creator of the universe deeply desires a committed and monogamous relationship with me. He has done His part. My part is my choice. Will I choose Him or the world’s “pleasures, treasures and measures”? (h/t John Elmore). c.f. 1 John 2:15-17 His presence is mine to have, as was true for the Israelites. It’s hard to run Him off but there is clearly a limit to His patience. As it is, the Holy Spirit dwells in me, Acts 2:38. “And Peter said to them, ‘Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.’” And my body is the temple, 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 19 “Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; 20 you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies.” As I have posted many times the absence of God’s presence in my life is quite evident if you look at my teenage years and adult life. Have received the most powerful force in the universe I have burned every bridge to my old life and will never go back.

Michael Sisson

Re: Ezra 3:1 Ezra 3:1 (NASB) Now when the seventh month came, and the sons of Israel were in the cities, >>>the people gathered together as one man<<< to Jerusalem. "as one" = "echad" This is another example of the Hebrew word “echad” referring to a compound unity of persons. Such examples are particularly important when evangelizing Jews and arguing for the triune nature of the G-dread using Dt 6:4 (the Shema). Re: Ezra 3:3 Ezra 3:3 (NASB) >>>So they set up the altar on its foundation<<<, for *they were terrified because of the peoples of the lands; and >>>they offered burnt offerings on it to the LORD<<<, burnt offerings morning and evening. While Torah prescribes that sacrifices can only be offered in the Temple (Lev 17:1-9), it’s worth noting sacrifice could resume once the Altar was erected; it did NOT have to wait for the entire Temple to be finished. See also Ezra 3:6. c.f. 2Sam 24:25 Re: Ezra 4:3 Ezra 4:3 (NASB) But Zerubbabel and Jeshua and the rest of the heads of fathers’ 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 to the LORD God of Israel, as King Cyrus, the king of Persia has commanded us.” Sadly, this is the attitude many Jews have towards Christians, because there is little about Christian orthopraxy they recognize as familiar, much less jealousy inspiring. c.f. Rom 11:11.

Sue Bohlin

Rachel! How wonderful to see you on The Journey this morning! First, SUPER SUPER devo, bless you! Second, I sure loved teaching cursive handwriting to your precious Ansel a few years back. Please give her a hug for me! What struck me in Ezra 3 was how relieved and FREE the Israelites must have felt to be able to obey God again after their 70 years of discipline in exile. The stiff-necked rebellion of idolatrous Israel before being deported to Babylon meant they held contempt for God's laws and rules, which were meant for their good and His glory. So God sent them to a place, for a time, when they COULDN'T obey. The choice to fulfill the requirements of the Law was denied them. They were so stubborn in their continual "no" to God, He put them in a place where they couldn't say "yes" either. So, as the good Parent He is, He sent them to "time out" to reset their hearts and give them an opportunity to choose to say "yes" again. When I think of the Big Picture of the biblical time line, I am reminded that in the combined new heavens and new earth, where there is no sin and no flesh, which means no one will ever WANT to say "no" to God, we will know true freedom--because we will only want to say "yes" to Him all the time. We will love the joy of total obedience and cooperation with God's intentions that is unsullied by anything dark or sinful.

Greg Jones

@Hugh’s question “What is the single most powerful force in all of the universe?” “For me, the most powerful force in the universe is the presence of God.” Agreed. “For me the key verse passage in these two books is verses 11-13 and the focus point is the weeping of the old men. So loud was it that it mixed with the shouts of joy.” “So, it’s very though provoking. What was the emotion that was creating such an intense sorrow. “ “These verses come to mind as starting thoughts-“ Hugh riffs from here. Aside note. I hear and get what Hugh with the verses he sights are saying. Those dots definitely connect on what I would call a linear plane. And when applying verses for self applications thinking about them in that way is the easiest way to make them applicable. Nothing wrong with being inspired to ask the question “what would make them feel this way?” “How would I have felt?” The way I’m going to talk about reading these passages probably won’t inspire the reader to ask questions like that. So this isn’t about right way/wrong way to read the passages. I see and hear the Bible as being written on something other than a linear line or flat plane. I’m going to zoom in and out from details in the bigger picture. And the widest view that the OT takes is this. And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.” All flesh is grass, and all its beauty is like the flower of the field. The grass withers, the flower fades when the breath of the Lord blows on it; surely the people are grass. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever. Isaiah 40:5,6b-8 With that said, riffing from where Hugh started. I read V3:11-13 sort of like a caption below a bigger picture. It’s setting something up. So for me when I read V3:13 so that the people could not distinguish the sound of the joyful shout from the sound of the people's weeping, for the people shouted with a great shout, and the sound was heard far away. Two distinct sounds, or things, are coming from one group of people but the sounds, or things, are indistinguishable. It is a picture of a bigger thought if you will and will set chapter four. That ends chapter 3. Chapter 4 begins like this. Now when the adversaries of Judah and Benjamin [heard] that the returned exiles were building a temple to the Lord, the God of Israel, they approached Zerubbabel and the heads of fathers' houses and said to them, [“Let us build with you, for we worship your God as you do,] and we have been sacrificing to him ever since the days of Esarhaddon king of Assyria who brought us here.” The narrator makes a distinction, the adversaries, Judah and Benjamin. And the adversaries heard the exiles were building a temple. The adversaries don’t see themselves as adversaries. Let us build with you, for we worship your God as you do, and we have been sacrificing to him ever since the days of Esarhaddon king of Assyria who brought us here.” So 3:11-13 is sort of like a caption that sets up the picture 4:1-3 paints. There’s one group of people in the land right now. They are exiles and former exiles. The newest people in the land are the old people of the land. The people there the longest are the newest exiles to it. Distinguishable but mixed. In 4:2 the people of the land aren’t afraid to approach the exiles. Zooming out from 4:2 is a bigger picture of the returning exiles and their adversaries. First the returning exiles V3:3 They set the altar in its place, for fear was on them because of the peoples of the lands, and they offered burnt offerings on it to the Lord, burnt offerings morning and evening. If that was literally a picture I would caption it “fear is their why.” And their adversaries V4:3-5 But Zerubbabel, Jeshua, and the rest of the heads of fathers' houses in Israel said to them, “You have nothing to do with us in building a house to our God; but we alone will build to the Lord, the God of Israel, as King Cyrus the king of Persia has commanded us.” [Then] the people of the land discouraged the people of Judah and made them afraid to build and bribed counselors against them to frustrate their purpose, all the days of Cyrus king of Persia, even until the reign of Darius king of Persia. Caption. Before-Then-After Kind of wants to make you cry because in the past this is the kind of thing that leads to a blood bath. And in the reign of Ahasuerus, in the beginning of his reign, they wrote an accusation against the inhabitants of Judah and Jerusalem. V4:6 Now the people of the land are only writing nasty letters. Makes you want to shout a little louder now like the Isley…sorry that’s probably inappropriate excitement over seeing this kind of change in humanity… So if you zoom out from this picture in Ezra looking back 2 Kings 17 is the account of Israel’s fall. In that chapter there are two verses back to back that go like this. The context of the text is talking about non Israelites who have been exiled into the land and had to be trained how to worship the God of the land. So they feared the Lord but also served their own gods, after the manner of the nations from among whom they had been carried away. 17:33 That verse is followed by this verse. To this day they do according to the former manner. They do not fear the Lord, and they do not follow the statutes or the rules or the law or the commandment that the Lord commanded the children of Jacob, whom he named Israel. 17:34 And to sum it up the chapter ends with this verse. So these nations feared the Lord and also served their carved images. Their children did likewise, and their children's children—as their fathers did, so they do to this day. 17:41 So that’s confusing but I see the Bible doing a Bible thing here. It’s describing all the people in the land. There are exiles in the land who look like the Israelites who were in the land before they were exiled. There are exiles in the land who don’t look like the Israelites who preceded them. (Those who didn’t fear the LORD and still don’t.) And the remnant of Israel left in the land who haven’t changed. Other words, 2 Kings 17 is making distinctions between one group. The group is the people of the land. Because it uses the words “to this day” all the events through 2 Kings 25 can be included. So the poorest of the poor, the vine dressers and plowmen that are left behind in chapters 24&25 are included in the chapter 17 summary verse. Zooming back in. These are “the people of the lands” Ezra 3:3 mentions. Why are “the people of the lands” so eager to help out these exiles? They can relate, and they know the poorest of the poor who got left behind. They’ve been hanging out with them for the past 70 years and they’ve come to know them as pretty good dudes. So bigger picture still. Haggai is going to make a distinction between God’s chosen who worship Him only and others. That needs to happen at this time. Because down stream from Haggai God pictures all worshipping Him alone. Not Him, and idols. In the big picture of Israel’s history sometimes the actions of God’s chosen are the bad example. Sometimes the actions of the unchosen are the better example for the chosen. Think David, Uriah the Hittite, the story of Bathsheba. The big picture makes a distinction between chosen and not chosen. And reading Israel’s history on a “flat plain” that can be understood as the primary picture. I would posit as do some others the big picture is Isaiah 40:5&6. All flesh is grass, and all its beauty is like the flower of the field. And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.” Some are chosen, some are not, all are included. In the clearest pictures of that the joys and sorrows of the two become indistinguishable from one another. Great devotional this morning, thank you Rachel. And indeed a very thought provoking question raised by Hugh.

Jason Cromwell

This one was for me, and I have to say Thank You!!!! Yes it's like going through any kind of pain or grief has been made Taboo outside of a funeral. I am definitely walking through grief today, and this Devotional is a great reminder.

Michael Scaman

Interesting they built the altar first, then the foundations of the tmple. No mention of the ashes of the red heifer spread around the area but they were supposed to and likely did. Interesting someone in Rockwall sold some red heifer to Israel in recent years.

Amy Lowther

1. Everything is pretty good right now. God is calling me to continue worshipping him as usual without giving up or skipping anything because things are pretty good right now. 2. One tragedy for me is my apartment was robbed in 2012. I sifted through my stuff after the police were done investigating. It was tough. I cried. I was so frustrated with it I attended and completed Regen in 2015. Then, in 2015, I completed sifting through my things. 3. No, I am honest and sincere in everything because it is good and God will “help me be honest” if I am not. 4. I have had grieving for a variety of losses and ushered it into private places because maybe they would disappear but they didn’t. It’s best to let God into your space. It’s best to let friends into your space. It’s best to let respected, credible authorities into your space as well. If I spend time with God while not grieving things, it’s easier to grieve when needed. I then remember God is valuable and His words are effective. 5. If something or someone has done their best and something bad happens, I experience joy and grief. I then pray for the something or someone and wish they will experience better times.