Ezra 4 The
Enemy Defaming
Chuck Swindoll has a book
titled, Three Steps Forward, Two Steps Back That title fits
A)We
have seen After 70 yrs of Captivity how God had stirred up the heart of the
pagan King Cyrus to issue a decree for the Jews to return to their land and
rebuild His temple.
B)Awesome one step forward!
1)Fifty
thousand Jews responded by giving up their lives in
Two steps forward!
C)They
rebuilt the altar, gathered in
Then
the enemy hit and the work on the temple stopped. One step back
A)The
work ceased for 16 long years. Two steps back.
Whenever you make a commitment to the
Lord, to Build to grow – to improve be prepared to face the enemy’s unrelenting
attempts to set you back.
A)Consider
his attacks in this Chapter and draw some connections to our lives!
1st Infiltration:
Now when the adversaries of Judah and
Benjamin heard that the descendants of the captivity were building the temple
of the LORD God of Israel, 2 they came to Zerubbabel and the heads of the
fathers' houses, and said to them, "Let us build with you, for we seek
your God as you do; and we have sacrificed to Him since the days of Esarhaddon
king of Assyria, who brought us here."
Let us Build with you! for we seek your
God as you do; and we have sacrificed to Him
A)The issue here was not one of just wanting to lend
a helping hand – foreigners helped build Solomon’s temple
B)They
were wanting to take ownership ! We worship the same
God – We worship just like you
C)Who were these who said: “Let’s work together... Let’s build the temple
together
D)NT name for this group was
SAMARITAINS.
Many
years earlier, the ten northern tribes were carried into captivity by the
Assyrians.
A)The two southern tribes
were still in tact in the south.
B)Only the poor people were
allowed to remain in the land.
C)The
Assyrians came and repopulated the land. But they ran into a problem.
1)Mountain
lions began to multiply in the land and wipe out the Assyrians that had
repopulated the northern part of
D)They
assumed that their problems stemmed from not
knowing
the custom of the god of the land.
Bad
Karma
They
sent word back to Assyria to send back some of the priests of the northern
kingdom thinking that they could learn the religion of
A)So these priest were sent back
– to teach these pagans how to worship Jehovah
B)Kind of Ironic – Many of
these priest had participated in the idolatry that was part of the cause for
C)They got in trouble for
worshipping false gods
1)And now they are forced to
come and show the Assyrians who worshipped false Gods how to worship the true
God
D)So the Assyrians begin to
start sacrificing to Jehovah but kept worshipping their idols
1)At the same time –
Marrying the Jews who were left in the Land – thus Samaritans were Born
The
problem of these people was syncretism.
A)A Fusion of two different
Philosophies lifestyles and systems of belief.
B) Remember the very
suggestion was not just to help but to Join in the Process
B)It would be Similar if the
Mormons came to us and said –
1)We
want to help you build your new Church and we will Merge together.
B)They believe in a
different Jesus – Not God in the flesh!
C)For Zerub to agree would
be compromising his faith!
D)Problem
to today with the Ecumenical movement:
Join
faiths – focus on what we agree on – Faith is important / Helping Pp is
important / Family / Community
1)Hey
if your God is Buddha / Allah / Jesus is a Prophet – doesn’t matter
E)It
does – Jesus is either God in the flesh who came to die for our sins or he is
nothing but a liar and Lunatic!
A)We
don’t believe the same - Why not make peace with them and let them work
together with us?”
B)The
answer is, for the same reason that you don’t drink water that is only a little
bit polluted.
It
will poison you!
THEY RESISTED
3 But Zerubbabel and Jeshua and the rest of the heads of the
fathers' houses of Israel said to them, “You may do nothing with us to build a
house for our God; but we alone will build to the LORD God of Israel, as King
Cyrus the king of Persia has commanded us."
Feud
Between Jews and Samaritans began right here would continue to grow.
A)Samaritans refused to
worship in
B)Jews refused to
acknowledge them.
C)Jesus later fixes the
Problem: Not where But Who!
So
the attack started with an attempt to infiltrate
If
we resist the enemy’s subtle approach, he will show his true colors by a more
aggressive opposition.
The
enemy often uses the tool of discouragement and troubling.
4 Then the people of the land tried to discourage the people of
We
are not sure how they did this – Could have been that they they said, “If you rebuild this temple, it’s just
going to get torn down again.”
A)It is going to take
forever – you are never going to finish!
Why Bother
B) Maybe they forced them to
do an ERI / traffic studies.
C)Satan
often uses the tool of discouragement & Frustration He whispers to us, “What you’re doing won’t
make any difference in this world or in eternity.
D)Those
kids you teach don’t appreciate your efforts. Why bother? Just quit and enjoy
yourself.”
He
tries to discourage pastors when people we have worked with turn against us,
spread unjustified criticism, and lead others out of the church.
He
Screams “You see! You’re just laboring
in vain!”
Time
is always a tool of Frustration and discouragement Here is a Principle to Christian growth
and life.
A)Nothing good happens over
night!
B)Labor Process – Like a
Baby 9 months
C)If
you let him God is going to do something in you way before he is does something
thru – you
1)No
fruit – but there is fruit in happening in you.
I
have had times in my life where I was trying so hard to do the right thing or
what I felt God was leading me to do – where I have felt what is the use
A)Just
pack it in! – Give it up!
B)We live in a day and age –
where few hang in there!
1)Rarely
see it thru the hard times the times of discouragement
C))What if Paul quit – No NT
Jesus the Joy set before him
he endured …..
We
mistakenly assume that if the Lord is in it, we won’t have hassles, setbacks,
and frustrations trying to get it done.
Reading
Christian biographies can help here. You hear about a man like Hudson Taylor and wrongly assume
that he started the China Inland Mission and (presto!) thousands came to
Christ.
He
did start the mission and eventually thousands did come to Christ, but not
without innumerable problems and setbacks that had to be overcome.
Reading
the story of what he went through can give you
the
perspective and strength to endure when you face strong opposition in whatever
God calls you to do.
The
enemy is going to try to discourage you at every turn – hang in there preserve
–
“Never doubt in
the dark what God told you in the light.”
A)Not worrying about yesterday
or tomorrow & focusing on today.
PROBLEM:
I have found that when I am worried, it usually has nothing to do with TODAY,
it is concern about TOMORROW.
B)“I’m
O.K. today, but I can’t believe what’s coming next week..... I don’t know what
I’m going to do.
Here is the Problem: The
worry comes when I try to cross the bridges that I will face next week in the
ability and strength that I possess today.
Today’s
Strength
A)He
does NOT give to me the capacity and strength TODAY to face the issues of next
month.
QUOTE
HYMN: “Day by day, and with each passing moment,
strength I find to meet my trials here.”
3rd
Attack: False accusation:
In 4:6-23,
we have a long parenthesis where Ezra shares examples of the opposition that
came later.
A)Spread
out over 4 Kings from Cyrus Ahasuerus { Xerxes
B)His
son King Artaxerxes whom Nehemiah
served.
C)The
enemy wrote letters to these Kings filled with false accusations and half
truths.
Rd v.6,7 11-16
They said these pp are
rebels!
They
said that if the city were rebuilt, the Jews
would
stop paying taxes (4:13).
A)That
will get any king’s attention!
B)The
critics also claimed to be loyal to the king. The literal phrase is, “we eat the salt of the palace” (4:14).
C)The Egyptian kings had
made salt a royal monopoly, and perhaps the Persians had also.
1)Our
English word salary comes from the Latin salarium, which was the ration
of salt given to soldiers.
Thus
we have the expression, “a man is not worth his salt”
Now here is what
we learn about these attacks is that the enemy is relentless
A)He
doesn’t stop – always keeps coming!
B)Rocky
– He keeps coming back for more!
Note
that But in both cases, the letters came from
multiple
parties joined together against the Jews. The ploy behind such tactics is to
imply, “Everyone is against these people.”
Just
look at the names and different backgrounds. If all of these men from such
different backgrounds and places can agree together against these Jews, the
Jews must be the problem!
Argument
today toward
A)
B)The City of the Messiah –
C)Same argument against the
Church -
Even
so today, the enemy operates by appealing to popularopinion against the Lord’s
people:
“These narrow-minded, intolerant,
Bible-believing Christians are the problem. They’re like the
Taliban,
trying to impose their views on everyone else!
The
majority of Americans believe in God, but we don’t believe in such an
intolerant, unloving God as these people do.
We believe in the basic teachings of the
Bible, but we aren’t so narrow or old fashioned as to think that it is
literally true.”
So
they claim to believe in God, but support “reproduction rights,” which means
killing babies;
And “celebrating diversity,” which means
promoting homosexuality.
Attack at Bible following
Believers -
A)The
result of the opposition was that the work on God’s house ceased for 16 years.
B)Victory
for the enemy
C)Haggai
and Zechariah {Distracted own houses
1)Internal
and External process in rebuilding – God’s work being done in us
C)Ezra:
External come with reinforcements to rebuild
1)Haggai
and Zech
Two things to watch out for!
(1)
Give up on your spiritual goals and go back to your old way of life.
The
prophet Haggai shows that many of the Jews had gotten distracted with building
their own homes and thus had neglected building the Lord’s house (Hag. 1:4).
I’ve seen this happen over and over. Someone
gets excited about serving the Lord.
They
jump into their new ministry with enthusiasm. But the enemy hits them,
Distracted by responsibilities
Other
desires – I will get involved when I finish – never do always another project.
(2) Settle for second best spiritually.
Some
of the Jews may have thought, “Well, at least we’re out of
If
we can’t have a temple, we’ll have to do without.” But without the temple, the
Jews couldn’t worship God as they should have.
They
wouldn’t have had the spiritual center for the nation.
Some Christians try to make a new beginning
with the Lord, but the enemy attacks.
They
back off and decide to settle into a mediocre spiritual existence.