Today in God's Word—April 2023
East Tallassee Church of Christ
April 4, Ezra 1
“Thus says Cyrus king of Persia: The LORD, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth, and he has charged me to build him a house at Jerusalem, which is in Judah. Whoever is among you of all his people, may his God be with him, and let him go up to Jerusalem, which is in Judah, and rebuild the house of the LORD, the God of Israel — he is the God who is in Jerusalem." - Ezra 1:2-3
If you've watched much television, you know that some shows tell a long story over multiple episodes or even a whole season of shows. You've probably seen and heard those “Next on..." and "Previously on..." segments at the end of one show and the beginning of the next one. Those previews and reviews tie the episodes of the story together.
The end of 2 Chronicles and the beginning of the book of Ezra remind me of those ending and beginning segments of a serialized story. With almost word for word repetition, the narrative bridges the two books together. The bridge words relate how a Persian king named Cyrus ordered the release of captives from Judah to return home to rebuild the house of God in Jerusalem.
The Bible is a long, continuing story about God's plan to redeem sinful human beings to himself in Christ. The story of the nation of Israel is a part of that bigger story. After God chose Abraham and promised him that through his descendant, all nations would be blessed, the focus of the Bible's story narrows to Jacob and his family, and the nation that grew from them. As God had promised Abraham, he would work through that family to bring Messiah into the world. So quite a few of the books of the Old Testament tell the history of that nation and quite a few more tell about the words of encouragement and warning God sent to Israel through the prophets.
Ezra picks up where 2 Chronicles left off. It stresses two dominant themes of the Bible's message in this opening chapter. When God stirred the heart of Cyrus, it was not the first or last time that God spoke to and worked through a pagan king to accomplish his purpose for his people. It was unheard of and unthinkable that a ruler would let conquered people go back and rebuild their home. But Cyrus did it, just as God said he would. He did it because a much higher authority stirred him to do it. This illustrates the absolute sovereignty of God over all nations and kings. He moved his own people and their enemies to do what he wanted done, just as we might move pieces on a game board. God showed the pagans and his people that he was in absolute, total control, above all the circumstances of their lives and times.
It seems to me that is a valid and needed lesson for the world today and for God's people living in the world. It's still true today. People of faith can count on God being in control, even if we can’t understand what God is doing or why.
The other important principle I want to take from this chapter is the surety of God's word. God named Cyrus in the book of Isaiah and told what he would do through him more than a hundred years before the Persian king was born. And Jeremiah told how long the captivity in Babylon would last even as it began — seventy years. When God spoke a word through his prophets, that word was sure. It would come to pass. The prophets may not have known the nature and scope of all the things they spoke and wrote. But the words from God were accurate and true - statements about what he was going to do. Some of the prophecies were short-term and came to pass in the lifetimes of those who first heard them. But others looked centuries into the future with the same unerring accuracy.
Sometimes events in Bible history are like echoes of things that had already happened. I hear an echo in Ezra 1 from the book of
Exodus. Remember how the Egyptians gave the Israelites treasures before the Exodus? Cyrus called for the people of the places where the displaced Israelites were living to to help them with what they needed to go home and rebuild their city and temple. The king himself made an astounding contribution to the return. Not only did he order it to happen, he returned over 5,400 vessels of precious metals that had been stolen from the temple by the Babylonians decades before.
There is a blessing for God's people in any time and place to be reminded that all of history, including our time and place, is in God's hand and under his control. God is still the sovereign king over all the earth whose words are absolutely reliable. When we believe that (and live like we believe that), we’ll have less anxiety and more peace in this troubled world.
Copyright © 2023 by Michael B. McElroy. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Comments