Ezra: The Prequel

One of the most popular Bible reading schedules is the M'Cheyne Reading Plan, which takes you through the Bible in a year. It has four readings a day, two from each Testament. The Old Testament starts with the book of Ezra, which is not an easy place to start if you don't know the back story. Ezra begins at the end of the captivity of the Jews and the return of the remnant back to Jerusalem. Because of a host of sins, the Lord punished them with 70 years of servitude and captivity in Babylon starting with the sacking of Jerusalem. The Lord promised and it came to pass, as it always does (Jeremiah 25:11-12; 29:9-10).

The deportation of Israel happened over the course of several events before it was all said and done (2 Chronicles 36). After the great King Josiah died, his son was put on the throne, but he only lasted a few months. Pharaoh (to whom Judah was paying tribute after defeating Judah in Josiah’s last battle) put his older brother on the throne, Jehoiakim. But suddenly, Babylon overthrew Egypt as the world power and came to Jerusalem and took the best of the young men they had to offer. Daniel was part of this captivity. Wicked king Jehoiakim plotted against Nebuchadnezzar, but that plan backfired because Nebuchadnezzar comes conquerors him.

Jehoiachin was next in line (yes, lots of strange "J" names, but to be fair, he would probably think Bob was a strange name) and was just an 18 year old boy and reigned for just 3 months before Nebuchadnezzar took him captive and then put Zedekiah on the throne, while he plunders Jerusalem taking the treasures from the temple and the king’s house. He took all the princes and the mighty men, and the craftsmen and left the poor and the working man behind.

Jeremiah told Zedekiah to remain under Nebuchadnezzar’s power, because that was the only hope (Jeremiah 7), but he doesn’t listen, and tries to join with Egypt to defeat Babylon. Everyone knows better than the preacher! Nebuchadnezzar hears about it and he is not one to put up with rebellion. His army surrounds Jerusalem. Jeremiah pleads with Zedekiah to reconsider (Jeremiah 36-37), but right before the battle, Egypt comes up and gives Judah some hope, but to no avail (Jeremiah 37:5-10). Lamentations chapter 4 tells the story of the 18 month siege and the horrors of what happens to Jerusalem.

This time, Nebuchadnezzar finishes the job. He burns the city, tears down the buildings, the walls, and leaves it in ruins. All the men who told Zedekiah not to listen to Jeremiah were slain. Anything of any value was stolen and what wasn’t pilfered was destroyed.

Nebuchadnezzar was powerful, but he wasn’t God and isn't going to reign forever. Daniel had a vision in chapter 7, concerning the world powers. After Babylon, the Persians would rule. And they did. Ezra 1:1, "Now in the first year of Cyrus king of Persia…"

So, if you are going to try the plan Saturday, this refresher might help. 

Hate, From a Distance

I've spent my entire life not caring about what Bette Midler thought on any subject. But, in this age of instant information, the ramblings of an elderly New York woman, using the fool's microphone that is Twitter, caught my attention. The alleged entertainer fired up about Joe Manchin said, "What #JoeManchin, who represents a population smaller than Brooklyn, has done to the rest of America, who wants to move forward, not backward, like his state, is horrible. He sold us out. He wants us all to be just like his state, West Virginia. Poor, illiterate, and strung out." She apologized a few minutes later, and so, with the spirit of the grace of and kindness of our Lord, I'll forgive her insult. But it can be instructive to learn from other people's mistakes, so we avoid making them ourselves.

Don't let your mouth run ahead of your brain online. I'm sure Midler thought she was making a brilliant point but didn't realize her contempt for her fellow countrymen would be poorly received. "He that is void of wisdom despiseth his neighbour: but a man of understanding holdeth his peace," Proverbs 11:12. It's malicious to hate people you have never met based on stereotypes, but it's the work of a fool to let everyone know. Jesus said, "for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaketh." Don't get caught up in the Two Minutes of Hate and let the media drive you to despise other human beings for their financial gain. Philippians 4:8, "Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things."

Besides that, it was a poor tactic. Proverbs 18:19 says, "A brother offended is harder to be won than a strong city: and their contentions are like the bars of a castle." The worst way to win someone to your way of thinking is by insulting him. Once you've left the arena of ideas and entered the playground of childish insults, you've ended any chance of convincing them of their error or winning them to your side. Are you in a heated discussion and trying to persuage someone you are right? You might be able to land a few zingers and win a battle, but they'll close up like a castle, and you've lost the war.

Midler doesn't want the country to be "backward." The Bill she wanted passed included expanding taxpayer-funded abortion. In her mind, progress includes ending the lives of inconvenient baby humans and making me pay for it. Is that moving forward? If so, no thanks. Backward is the right move if you are heading off a cliff. West Virginia has lots of problems, but Midler doesn't have the answers. If progress means treating people you disagree with politically with hatred, then I'm happy here in The Mountain State.

Found and Lost

 

In 1610, Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei saw something curious through the telescope he made – four stars traveling around Jupiter. Stars in the sky are not novel, but stars traveling in the opposite direction as the others were intriguing. Galileo realized they were not stars but moons, and they rotated around Jupiter with such precise regularity, you could set your clock by them. Before cell phones worked their magic, you had to set your clock by some standard, something fixed. Imagine (or remember) a world where it took a lot of work to set your watch if you lost time. Jupiter's moons were that reliable, and the regularity of the moons was so precise you could calculate longitude by them. 

In the 1600s, there was no reliable way to find longitude. Latitude was no problem, but you need a standard to go by with longitude, something fixed (Longitude lines get smaller as you move toward the poles and are not the same distance apart as the parallel). If you are in the middle of the ocean, how are you going to be able to find your bearing? At the time, the only conceivable way to calculate longitude at sea was to know the exact time in a fixed location, compare it by the time on the ship, make some calculations of the time difference to find your bearing. But the problem was timepieces in the 1600s were large and couldn't keep time at sea because of temperature and atmospheric pressure changes. Besides, if a clock lost a few minutes every day, you'd be hundreds of miles off course by the time you crossed the ocean. And, there was no reliable way at the time to look through a telescope with the regularity needed to keep on track. Plus, sometimes it's cloudy. 

Galileo made a fantastic discovery. We learned about the universe, found moons we didn't know existed, and we saw the faithfulness of God in keeping in motion distant moons on uninhabited planets hidden far from the eyes of man 365 million miles away. Psalms 8:3-4, "When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained; What is man, that thou art mindful of him?" We have studied and learned much about the world we live in, yet so much is undiscovered and scarcely understood. It wasn't until the 1700s when John Harrison built a clock that could keep time at sea, that we could know where we were or how big our world was. With all of our technological advances, we can know our location in the world with GPS because we can shoot satellites into space. We can see off into the distant stars and keep time in perfect sync. We found something fixed in the wonders of God's creation through technological advances and forgotten the God who created all and holds all things in motion. We found our bearings of location and time but are lost without Christ. 

Grudging Grace

 

Theodore Beza (1519-1605) was a French Protestant theologian who succeeded John Calvin in Geneva. Before Theodore's conversion to Christ, he acted like one not converted to Christ. Imagine that, a sinner who acted like a sinner. He was a talented writer and published some popular poetry, which contained some salacious verse, and naturally, it was published and widely read. In the process of time, God graciously granted Beza the grace of repentance and faith, and when he received Christ as Saviour, he began living for and serving his Redeemer. But books do not feel remorse, and neither can they repent. So despite his change of heart, the books remained on the shelves of worldly-minded people. Demand was high for these poems, and there was a lot of money to be made in republishing. Now ashamed of the work, Beza refused to republish, despite the potential for making a ton of cash.

Beza had some enemies, including the Roman Catholic church, because of his doctrine, being a Reformer. Years after his conversion, someone drug up the amorous verse and charged him and the entire Reformation movement as worldly and wicked. I suppose any way to attack the doctrine of justification by faith and the gospel of grace. In response to his old sins and his past life used as an attack on him and his theology, he said, "These men grudge me the grace of God."

Human nature doesn't change. A young man wrote some foolish and sinful things in public in his youth, and later in his life, his enemies dug up dirt on him and tried to cancel him. Everyone has a past. Every Christian has sins we are ashamed of, and if you are a Christian, you have repented and renounced those sins. But the enemy grudges us the grace of God. Satan is our adversary and the accuser of the brethren. If he can, he won't give our hearts and minds a moment's peace in the mercy and pardon of God. He'll dredge up old sins and rub our noses in it.

It's not hypocrisy when Beza repented then spoke against the sins of his past –  it's the work of the Holy Spirit in sanctification. Jesus Christ bore the sins of his people in His own body on the tree and was the substitute for sinners. Rather than me paying for my sins, Jesus paid the debt I owed. I receive His righteousness by faith and stand before God justified, clean, and pardoned. I'm not a sinless man, but I have a sinless Saviour who gave me His righteousness. I have a sovereign Comforter who sanctifies me and leads me in the path of righteousness. Trying to cancel a person for the past they left behind is the Devil's work. It doesn't prove Christians are hypocrites, it proves that Jesus Christ saves sinners, even the worst of sinners (1 Timothy 1:12-16)  and tries to begrudge a man God's grace, that saved a wretch like me.

Pray and Praise

When I first moved to North Carolina, a long-time resident told me, "If you don't like the weather here, just wait a few minutes, and it will change." I moved to Southeast Georgia about five years later, and a local there told me the same thing. When I moved to West Virginia, you guessed it, "…wait a few minutes, and it will change." Though the weather was different in each place, it's subject to change pretty quickly no matter where you are in the eastern US. It's not uncommon to drive to work in the sunshine and drive home in a torrential downpour.

Life is like that. It can change in an instant. We can wake up expecting a typical, ordinary day, and our world is turned upside down by lunch. The opposite is true as well. You may start the day depressed and downtrodden and on top of the world by supper time. The Bible doesn't promise a trouble-free life, but sometimes it is. Jesus didn't say for nothing, "In the world ye shall have tribulation." On the other hand, remember the second clause, "but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world." At the beginning of the book of Job, he had a good life. At the end of the book, he had a good life too. It was different but, in many ways, better. But boy did Job have afflictions in between. Not just hard times but severe afflictions of the greatest sort. Any one of Job's trials would be enough to break some men, but Job had one tragedy after another, after another. Affliction is when you are affected by some lengthy trial or repeated troubler. Whether bodily sickness, grief, sorrow, disappointments, loss, or continued trouble (or when you have them all at once), James gives us instructions on living through affliction and happiness. James 5:13 says, "Is any among you afflicted? let him pray. Is any merry? let him sing psalms." Go to the Father, through the Son, in the Spirit and find help, comfort, and grace in a trial, and when you are merry, sing psalms. There is a lot of truth in the lyric, "I sing because I'm happy." James directs our happiness to the worship of the Almighty. God ordains our steps, and when those steps are on a smooth and easy path, the wind is at our back, and the sunshine feels good on our face, give thanks by singing praise to the Lord.

A few years ago, John Piper wrote an article before cancer surgery titled, "Don't Waste Your Cancer." His point was even during a great trial, there is an opportunity to worship, witness, and live closer to Christ in suffering. We miss the privilege to live well in abundance or plenty. When you pray in your affliction, it's an act of faith knowing the Father hears you, the Lord cares for you, and the throne of grace is open to you through Jesus Christ, and singing praises acknowledges God's blessings.