Welcome to Cornerstone Reformed Baptist Church. Thank you for using and sharing our resources. What you're about to hear is God's Word from one of our teaching elders. We trust that God's Word will inspire, instruct, and bless you. For further teachings or information on our ministry, please visit us on our website at cornerstonerbc.com. That's cornerstonerbc.com. The book of Jeremiah chapter 25 and we are going to continue this evening with our studies that we're doing on the Old Testament and how Jesus Christ is portrayed and his foreshadow in the Old Testament. And we are coming to the end of this series. This is going to be our last Bible study with that topic. And by God's grace, next week, we are going to start in the life of the Lord Jesus Christ. And as I said a few weeks ago, we are going to be choosing seven different moments of the life of the Lord Jesus Christ. And we are going to be studying the life of the Lord Jesus Christ and how he is the Messiah, not only of Israel, but he is the savior of the world. And this evening, we're coming to the end of this very long, Bible study that we have done through the Old Testament and our brother last week explained to us the exiles. So now I want and I hope by God's grace to study now the returning of the people of God from the exile to the land. and I hope to do a very practical study for your soul so that we may be edified in our faith. What we're going to be reading, as I said, is Jeremiah chapter 25, and we're going to be reading 14 verses in Jeremiah, and these passages in Jeremiah are going to give us a couple of starting points that I want to make in regards to the exiles and the structure in which I want to present to you the Bible study tonight. So, Brother Jesus, can you please help me just read in place Jeremiah chapter 25, verse 1 through verse 14. The word that came to Jeremiah concerned all the people of Judah. in the fourth year of Jehoiakim, the son of Josiah, king of Judah. That was the first year of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, which Jeremiah, the prophet, spoke to all the people of Judah and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem. For 23 years, from the 13th year of Josiah, the son of Amon, king of Judah, to this day, the word of the Lord has come to me. I have spoken persistently to you, but you have not listened. You have neither listened nor included or inclined your ears to hear, although the Lord persistently sent you, all his servants, the prophets, saying, Turn now, even one of you, from his evil ways and evil deeds, and dwell upon the land that the Lord has given you and your fathers from the old and forever. Do not go after other gods to serve and worship them, or provoke me to anger with the work of your hands, that I will do you no harm. Yet you have not listened to me, declares the Lord, that you might provoke me to anger with the work of your hands to your own harm. Therefore, thus says the Lord of hosts, because you have not obeyed my word, behold, I will send for all the tribes of the north, declares the Lord, and for Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, my servant, and I will bring them against this land and its inhabitants and against all these surrounding nations. I will devote them to destruction and make them a horror, a hissing, and an everlasting desolation. Moreover, I will banish from them the voice of mirth. and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride, the grinding of the milestones and the light of the lamp. This whole land shall become a ruin and a waste, and these nations shall serve the king of Babylon 70 years. Then, after 70 years are completed, I will punish the king of Babylon and that nation The land of the Chaldeans, for their iniquity, declares the Lord, making the land an everlasting waste. I will bring upon that land all the words that I have uttered against it, everything written in this book which Jeremiah prophesied against all the nations. For many nations and great kings shall make slaves even of them, and I will recompense them according to their deeds. and the works of their hands. Amen. That is the Word of the Lord. Now, brothers and sisters, during these Bible studies, we have covered a long portion, not only of time, but a long portion of our Bibles, the whole Old Testament. We started from Adam and now we are just going until the end of the book of the Old Testament, which is the returning of the people of God from the exile back to the land. And I completely understand that this can be rather daunting, that there's a lot of information that is being given from the life and from the moment of Adam and creation, all this way through Israel as a nation, until at this point in which Israel has been split and taken into captivity, into exile, and now they're returning. And I know that this is a lot of information, but let me encourage you that as just as the Apostle Paul says to Timothy, that all Scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for everything that we need as Christians so that we should individually and as a congregation to invest time, not only through our Bible studies, but also individually in our times to understand the history of the people of God and the workings of God through the Old Testament. This is very important. So what we have done with this series is basically given you some information about very important people and times of history and even about the people of Israel as they portray and as they foreshadow the Lord Jesus Christ. But now in my attempt for you to have a structured way to approach the Old Testament, And perhaps this might be the way that your mind works. Let me just simply cover this Bible study in just three simple points in which I pretend to apply to your soul. that which I hope the Lord has for us in His heart, for us, for each one of us and as a congregation. The first thing that I want to do is just to give you a simple structure of the Old Testament and the things that we have covered in all of these Bible studies, a simple structure of the history of Israel as a nation throughout the Old Testament. And then once we have given that very simple and it's going to be a very short structure of the Old Testament, so for you to understand all of these Bible studies that we've done and the history of Israel as a nation. After that, I want to find a spiritual pattern, especially in the life of Josiah. that we are going to use to understand the returning of the exiled people. So we're going to find a spiritual pattern in the life of Josiah, and we're going to use that spiritual pattern for me to explain to you some important details of the returning of the people of God when they were exiled. So the third point will be taking that pattern of the life of Josiah and explaining the return of the people of God to the promised land. And I hope that we may cover the book of Ezra and briefly the book of Nehemiah because this is a long period of time. And if it's so difficult for us to address one chapter every Sunday, you will see the difficulty of addressing two books. So, this is what we're going to be doing. My purpose is that, as we have been, by the grace of God and the Spirit, benefited so much from our studies in the Old Testament, that you may have also a structure, a simple structure in your mind, that you can approach the Old Testament as you study and as you do your devotions and as you read through Holy Scripture are edified in the Spirit by the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. So let's start just with the simple structure which I had already mentioned a couple of weeks ago and that I said to you that we could in a sense divide the Old Testament and the history of Israel as a nation in the ways by which God related to the people or how God ruled over the people of Israel as a nation. And I said to you that we could divide the history of Israel in the ways that God related to His people, ruling and governing over them in three different sections. And those three different sections I mentioned to you two or three weeks ago was that first, God governed or ruled His people through prophets. And that was Moses, Joshua, and then the judges, and then you can even include there Samuel. That could be prophets and judges. So God governed His people, Israel, as a nation in this first stage through prophets and judges. That is Moses, Joshua, and the judges, and Samuel, and we study some of those things. But then after the prophets, the way that God ruled over the people of Israel changed. It was not anymore through a person like Moses or Joshua or the individual judges or Samuel, but then it changed to a king. And this king was, as you remember, requested by the people of Israel. So the first section of this story is by prophets, and then the second one is by kings, starting with King Saul that our brother explained to us. And all the many kings, King David and King Solomon, or all the other kings, and our brother gave us an overview of the most important kings and how they played a very important role in the life of Israel as a nation. But then the time of the kings will come to an end with the exile, as our brother explained to us. There's going to be this time in which the people of Israel are going to be deported to other lands. So then when they return to the land, The way that God is going to rule over the nation of Israel is not going to be anymore through a prophet like Moses or Joshua or the judges or even Samuel and it's not going to be with kings like King David or King Solomon or King Saul, but it's going to be through the priestly system. And that is going to be from the returning of the people of Israel until the time of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's why when you study the life of the Lord Jesus Christ and when he's caught in order to be crucified, they take him to the high priest in order to define, in order to see the case of the Lord. Because in that time, the priestly system was the highest authority that was ruling in a sense over the nation of Israel. I said that the way that these three sections, prophets and kings, and then the priestly system ruling over the people of Israel, portray, of course, the Lord Jesus Christ, because those three offices fail. During that time, Israel is not able to enter in the everlasting relationship with God, because those were foreshadowing the true prophet, the true king, and the true priest, the high priest, who is the Lord Jesus Christ. So now, my beloved brothers and sisters, we found ourselves in the end of the second section, which is the Kings, and arriving to the point in which the period of the Kings is going to come to an end, which our brother has explained to us. Now, in the passage of Scripture that we read in Jeremiah chapter 25, there's a couple of data, of information that I wanted just to pay attention to. And I'm going to use those two pieces of information to go into the second point, which is the spiritual pattern in the life of Josiah that I want us to understand. So then we will move into the returning from the exile. And the two pieces of information that I want you to see in the personal description that we have read, the first one is found in verse 11, which our brother very clearly explained to us last week. And it's speaking about the length and about the duration of the exile. How many years was it? Remember? So, 70 years, it says, this whole land shall become a ruin and waste, and this nation shall serve the king of Babylon 70 years. Now, remember that the failure of the kings was this. First, that they divided the kingdom. The people of Israel were comprised by 12 tribes. Remember the sons of Jacob? It was 12 tribes. But the failure of the kings was that the kingdom was divided. Now the kingdom was divided in 10 tribes North and then two tribes Judah and Benjamin South. That is like if Australia was going to be divided and Queensland will become just a country and all the other states will become Australia. To the point that all the other tribes took the name of Israel and Judah and Benjamin took the name of Judah. So they changed their names. Australia was divided and Queensland will become a country and we'll change the name to Queensland and then the rest of the states in Australia will become Australia, something like this. And then the exile happened in two instances. One for the people of Israel, namely those other tribes, which our brother explained to us, the Northern Kingdom, that they were taken way before Judah that is like if let's say the UK or the Americans will come to Australia and they will take all of these other people and being in exile means, because someone asked me to define what exile is, is that they come and they take over the people and they take them and they deport them to a different land. This is what the exile meant. So the people of Israel were taken back to a different land and what they did is what they replaced even in a tactic in order to have dominion over this territory. What they did is that they replaced the people. They brought different people to this northern kingdom that was called Israel, but then what was remaining for the people of God was this tribe or this section of the people of God that was Judah. This remained a little bit longer. So when we are speaking about the 70 years of exile, we're speaking about the exile of the people of Judah. We understand that, right? So the people of Israel had been taken way before and they had been scattered. This is the diaspora. And then in Judah, this is the exile for them is going to be 70 years. That's the first piece of information that I want you to have in your mind. This is very important. Now, this is important because Josiah is going to be the last of the righteous, if you want to use that word, or the king that walked in the ways of David, as our brother explained the last two weeks. Josiah is going to be the king, not of the whole Israel, not of the Israelites of the north, but he is going to be king in the south, in Judah, the one that received the promise through Jeremiah or the prophecy through Jeremiah that was going to be an exile for 70 years. so put your eyes then in the beginning of the text because this i want you to now take you to the second piece of information that is going to be very interesting because i want to i want you to see the spiritual pattern that is going to take place now in verse one it says the word that came to jeremiah concerning all the people of judah right so that we understand This Judah is the southern kingdom. It's not Israel as a whole. And that's why Jews, they were Judahites, all of those that were for Judah. And then Israelites were more related to people from the north. And a better word, perhaps, to speak of the whole Israel would be Hebrews. But then these terms change as you study the Old Testament. These terms change nuances. That's why sometimes it's important to have that in mind as you interpret the prophets, and then prophesy how it is applied in the New Testament. And now, here we're speaking of the Southern Kingdom, Judah. It says, "...the word that came to Jeremiah concerning all the people of Judah, in the fourth year of Jehoiakim, the son of Josiah, king of Judah." That was the first year of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon. And you're going to have to bear with me because that's the best way that I can pronounce that name. That was the first year of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon. So this is saying that this prophecy that we are going to read now came on the first year of Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, and this is the first year that he had already taken possession of Judah. It says, which Jeremiah the prophet spoke to all the people of Judah and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem. Now verse 3, pay attention to the prophecy that came to Jeremiah on the first year that Nebuchadnezzar had already come to Judah. This is the first year, and on the first year that Nebuchadnezzar came to Judah, this is the prophecy that came. Now this is the prophecy, it says, for 23 years, It says him, for 23 years, from the 13th year of Josiah, the son of Ammon, king of Judah, to this day, the word of the Lord has come to me, and I have spoken persistently to you, but you have not listened. OK, so. These are just simple numbers. This is the first year that the book of Nessar had taken over Judah, right? And then Jeremiah is saying that he had been prophesying for how long? For 23 years. Now he says that he has been doing this from which moment? It says from the 13th year of whose reign? Josiah. So that is that on the 13th year of Josiah's reign, the prophet Jeremiah, we have a whole book, he started to prophesy. This is very important, okay? This is way beyond when Nebuchadnezzar had come to take Judah, because this is the first year, right? This is the first year in which the prophecy came to the prophet Jeremiah. But the prophet had already been speaking to the people and many other prophets had already been speaking to the people, telling the people to turn to God. Keep that in your mind because it says that on the 13th year of Josiah, the prophet started to prophesy. Now, let's go back to 2 Chronicles chapter 34, in which we are given information about King Josiah. Remember that I'm just trying to find a spiritual pattern, which is very important, brothers and sisters, for us to just simply understand something of the return Go to 2 Chronicles 34 in which we are told information about the reign of King Josiah. So in which year did Jeremiah start to prophesy? So in the 13th year of the reign of King Josiah, and he did that for 23 years, right? And on the 23rd year was the first year that Nebuchadnezzar had already taken Judah. Now pay attention to this, my beloved brothers and sisters. 2 Chronicles 34, it says, was eight years old when he began to reign and he reigned 31 years in Jerusalem. Let me just ask you a very simple question, mathematical question. How old was Josiah when he finished his reign? If he started to reign when he was eight years old and he finished by his death, he died, 31 years after that, how old was he when he died? 39. So he was 39 years old, right? He stayed there for 31 years in Jerusalem. And then verse 2, it says, And he did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, and walked in the way of David his father, and he did not turn aside to the right hand or to the left. Was he a good or a bad king? He was a good king, right? He was after the ways of the Lord. He was following the ways of David. Now, pay attention to verse 3. It says, For in the eighth year of his reign, while he was yet a boy, he began to seek the God of David, his father." In the eighth year of his reign, how old was he when he started to seek the Lord? So he was 16. In which year did the prophet Jeremiah started to prophesy? in the 13th year, right? So that is when he was 21. He started to reign when he was 8, and 13 years after the prophet Jeremiah started to prophesy. But before the prophet would be sent by God when he was 21, when Josiah was 26, The Lord put His hand on his heart and he started to seek the Lord as a boy. 16 years old he was, right? This is on the 18th year. Verse 3 says, For in the eighth year of his reign, while he was yet a boy, he began to seek the God of David, his father. And then he said something very important. And in the 12th year, he began to purge Judah and Jerusalem of the high places. the ashram, and the cart, and the metal images. Now pay attention, on the 12th year he started to purge the land. That is, that he started to seek the Lord when he was 16 years old, right? These are the numbers that we're just reading in the Bible, right? And then it says that on the 12th year, that is when he was approximately 20 years, he started to purge the land. This was on the 12th year. This is one year before Jeremiah will come and start to prophesy. The Lord was already working in the heart of Josiah to purify his people. Not only that, but he was already working to bring a prophet. But this is going to be very important because Josiah sought the Lord for four years. Four years seeking the Lord in prayer, in fasting, seeking the presence of the Lord. And it took him four years for them to start acting on behalf of his people. In which way? To purge and to clean the land of all of these idols and all of these things that had brought an abomination to the land. No, let's continue with this story because now if we turn to our page and we go, or at least the page of my Bible, and if you go to verse 8, now we're going to be given another piece of information. Okay? Another piece of information. Now it says, now in the 18th year of his reign, this is Josiah's reign, how old was he then? 26. Now the prophet Jeremiah had been now prophesying for how long? for five years. He started to prophesy when Josiah was 21, and now he's approximately 26. So Jeremiah, the prophet, had already been prophesying for five years. He had already been proclaiming and preaching the word to Josiah and to all Israel. And Josiah had been living this personal experience of seeking the Lord for four years and then cleansing the land. It says that in the 18th year of his reign, when he had cleansed the land, And the house, he sent Shaphan, the son of Asaliah, and Masaiah, the governor of the city, and Joah, the son of Johas, the recorder to repair the house of his God. I want you to see the pattern here. Josiah sought the Lord with his heart, right? For four years, he prayed, he sought the presence of the Lord. Four years after that, he started to act and to do things, not only to seek Him in prayer and in meditating upon what he would have known of God, but now he purged, he cleansed the land. And after he finished cleansing the land, now what comes to his mind is, we need to repair the house. of the Lord, namely the temple. We need to repair. You know, I have been seeking the Lord. Now the land has been cleansed, but now these people, they need the place that God allocated for them to meet the Lord, which is the temple. Let's rebuild the temple. Let's repair better the temple. My brother explained to us that when they were repairing the temple, they found something. Remember, what did they find? They found the book of the covenant. If you go to verse 14, If you go to verse 14, it says, while they were bringing out the money that had been brought into the house of the Lord, Hilkiah, I hope that is how he pronounces his name, the priest found the book of the law of the Lord. Praise God. They found the word of the Lord. He sought the Lord. Then He purged and He cleansed the land. His heart was towards repairing the house of the Lord, and then in His mercy and in His grace, God made him find the book of the law. And then if you go to verse 19, it says, and when the king heard the words, in verse 19 of the same chapter, and when the king heard the words of the law, he tore his clothes and the king commanded Hilkiah, he come, the son of Shaphan, Abdon, the son of Micah, Shaphan, the secretarian, Isaiah, the king's servant saying, go, inquire of the Lord for me and for those who are left in Israel and in Judah concerning the words of the book that has been found. For great is the wrath of the Lord that is poured out on us because our fathers have not kept the word of the Lord to do according to all that is written in this book." Now, brothers and sisters, just remember, that he has not only sought the Lord and cleansed the land and now repairing the temple and filing the law, but he is also under the prophesying of who? Jeremiah continues to prophesy to him. It's not only now that the word of the Lord is given to this Josiah by the book that he has found, but there's a prophet sent by God that is constantly prophesying to him. This was a revival. This was a revival. Israel had found the Word of God. And how do we know that it was a revival? Because of what it says in verse 33. If you go to the end of the chapter, it says, And Josiah took away all the abominations from all the territory that belonged to the people of Israel and made all who were present in Israel. How many? All. all the people of Israel, and made all who were present in Israel serve the Lord their God. All His days they did not turn away." This day is all Israel. "...all they did not turn away from following the Lord, the God of their fathers." This is the definition of a revival. This is the definition of a revival. And because of this story that I have just, or that we have just read, I was actually going to name Martin, I was going to name him Josiah. But because what it comes after, we change our mind, because something is going to happen. When you go and then you see what comes after Josiah, we are told something very interesting. He is going to engage, and our brother mentioned that he's going to engage in a war that he was not called to with Egyptians. If you go to chapter 35 in verse 24, this is the revival that Josiah, that the Lord brought to the land through Josiah. It says in verse 24 of chapter 35, So his servants took him out of the chariot. He had already died. He is Josiah. This is his death because of engaging into this war that he was not called to. And he died. And now the Bible is going to give us the information about his death. So his servants took him out of the chariot and carried him in the second chariot and brought him to Jerusalem. and he died and was buried in the tombs of his fathers. All Judah and Jerusalem mourned for Josiah." A very important name that was given to us. Jeremiah also uttered a lament for Josiah. Was Jeremiah happy that he had died? No, he was broken because all the prophecies that he had been prophesying from the mouth of God, he had seen that the Lord was working in Josiah, bringing revival and cleansing to the land. So Jeremiah mourned for the death. of Josiah and all the singing men and singing women have spoken of Josiah in their laments to this day they made this a rule in Jerusalem behold they are written in the laments now the rest of the acts of Josiah and his good deeds according to what is written in the law of the lord and his acts first and last behold they are written in the book of the kings of israel and judah now let me just show you the terrifying Now, brothers and sisters, what I'm going to show you now is the terrifying thing that comes next. Because how old was Josiah when he died? You answered that in the beginning. How old was he? 39 years old. He started to reign when he was eight. He reigned for 31 years. Time of revival. He was seeking the Lord. He repaired the house. Jeremiah was preaching there next to him. They had the book of the law. And then we hear this in the story that follows. The people of the land took Jehoahaz, the son of Josiah, and made him king in his father's place in Jerusalem. Jehoahaz was 23 years old when he began to reign, and he reigned three months in Jerusalem. Now, let me just ask you a simple mathematical question. How old was he when he started to reign? 23 years old. Josiah reigned for how long? 31 years, right? So that means that he was born in the midst of revival. This person that we have here, his son, was born in the midst of revival. That is the most blessed place for a person to be born in. If it's a blessing for a person to be born in a Christian family, it is a higher or greater blessing not only to be born in a Christian family, but in the midst of revival. He was born and he grew up in the midst of revival. Yet he was taken captive by the Egyptians. It says in verse 3, Then the king of Egypt deposed him in Jerusalem and laid on the land a tribute of a hundred talents of silver and talents of gold. Verse 4, And the king of Egypt made Eliakim his brother. His brother. So if Eliakim is his brother, that means that he is also related to who? to Josiah king over Judah and Jerusalem and changed his name to Jehoiakim. Okay, this is the new king of Israel. Now, let's just read the story of the other son of Josiah in verse 5. It says, Jehoiakim was 25 years old when he began to reign. His brother only reigned for three months. So that means if he was 25 years old, he was also born and he was also raised in the midst of revival. He did not only listen to his father as he was growing in conformity to Christ in the promised Messiah. And he didn't only listen to him, but he also listened to a prophet who was prophesying in that time. Who was that prophet? Jeremiah, yet the horrible thing comes here that says that he did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, his God. This person that was in the midst of revival, that was in the midst of the finding of the law, that was in the midst of the preaching of Jeremiah, that was in the midst of the hand of the Lord moving, that was raised in that, that saw the experience and the example of His Father, this person ended up doing that which was evil in the sight of the Lord. And this is fearful. This is fearful because when it comes to righteousness, Not even the good example, external example of men is sufficient to capture the heart, or even our children, brothers and sisters. It is only by the power of the Spirit of God working in the heart of every person, because that's going to be the story of all the other kings that come after that. If you go to verse 9, it says, Jehoiachin, in verse 9, in chapter 36, Jehoiakim was 18 years old when he became king, and he reigned three months and 10 days in Jerusalem. Was he good? It says, and he did what was evil in the sight of the Lord. And then the next one was Zedekiah, and Zedekiah was 21 years old when he began to reign, and he reigned 11 years in Jerusalem. He did what was evil in the sight of the Lord his God. All of them, not born, but would have spent at least some time during the time of revival, in which the Bible says that all people followed the Lord. So, when Josiah was alive, they were not exception. These people, they were not exception. They were outwardly, externally, following the Lord in the midst of Josiah's revival. They were following. But then, when they were made kings, They did that which was evil in the eyes of the Lord. Josiah brought the revival and then the ones that came after, there was the great falling away of the workings of God. Then as our brother explained to us, it's going to come and the temple is going to be destroyed. The temple is going to be destroyed and the people are going to be taken and exiled. They are going to be taken to Babylon. They are going to be taken, they're going to be deported. Our brother said that three deportations, three exiles, three captivities, they were taken to this land. That was, as the prophet Jeremiah would say that in Jeremiah chapter 29, it's God who sent them in exile because of their wickedness. It was God that decided to send them in that. But brothers and sisters, if you turn your page and then you go to the book of Ezra, We will have now the story, the very important story, and I will try to be very concise with this. The story of the returning of the people of God and the pattern that I wanted to present to you in the life of Josiah was, first of all, that he sought the Lord, that his heart was after the Lord, that he was seeking the Lord. In prayer, in fasting, in the secret place for four years, as a young boy, when he was 16, he started to seek the Lord. And after seeking the Lord, what was the next thing that he did? After he sought the Lord, he purged, he cleansed the land. He was concerned about the abominations that were in the land and then when he finished purging and cleansing the land, what did he do after? He wanted to repair and restore the temple and after that, by God's providence, what did he find? the book of the law, and then he was concerned to obey and to follow the things of the law. Those four things, have them in your mind. Seeking the Lord, purging or cleansing the land, and then repairing or rebuilding the house of the Lord, and then obeying the law of the Lord. Because in a way, this is what is going to happen during the time of the exile. Now the exile, how long did it go for? How many years? So 70 years. But the Lord had determined that the exile was going to be 70 years and they were taken by the Babylonians. And during the time that they were taken by the Babylonians, the Babylonians will be defeated. and the Persians will come and will take over Babylon, and then the people of Judah will not be under the Babylonians anymore, but they will be under the Persians. Okay, this is very, very important. In a sense, we call it the Babylonian exile, because we're the Babylonians, the one that took them first, and even in the New Testament, they remain using the word Babylon. But it was then, in the end, the Persian Empire that had taken over the Babylonians, the ones that were over the people of Israel. That's why when we turn our page and then we go to Ezra, we hear something very important, which is the fulfillment of the promise and the prophecy of Jeremiah, that our brother read in chapter 25, that he was going to be for 70 years. But even though that promise was given, Seeking the Lord was necessary. Even though it had been written that it was going to be 70 years, it was needed that the Spirit of God would visit the heart of someone in His people so that He will lift our prayers and praises to God, supplicating for this to come to an end. And this man is Daniel. If you go to the book of Daniel, Daniel chapter 9, Our brother also mentioned this in one of his Bible studies. When they were taken in exile, in captivity, when they were deported, Daniel was deported. He mentioned that last week. So he was there in Babylon. He was living there. And then if you go to chapter nine, if you go to chapter nine. We will find there a very beautiful Persian of Scripture. Mikey, you want to help me reading this, please, brother? From verse 1 all the way to verse 15. Please pay attention to the words of Daniel, who is in the exile, who is there in Babylon just before the 70 years come to an end. Brother. In the first year of Darius, the son of Zerxes, by descent of Eve, who was made king over the realm of the Chaldeans. In the first year of his reign, I, Daniel, perceived in the books the number of years that, according to the word of the Lord to Jeremiah the prophet, must pass before the end of the desolations of Jerusalem, namely 70 years. Then I turned my face to the Lord God, seeking him by prayer and pleas for mercy, with fasting and sackcloth and ashes. I prayed to the Lord my God and made a confession, saying, O Lord, the great and awesome God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments. We have sinned and done wrong and acted wickedly and rebelled, turning aside from your commandments and rules. We have not listened to your servants, the prophets, who spoke in your name to our kings, our princes, and our fathers, and to all the people of the land. To you, O Lord, belongs righteousness, but to us, open shame. as at this day to the men of Judah, to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and to all Israel, those who are near and those who are far away, in all the ways to which ye have driven them, because of the treachery that they have committed against you. To us, O Lord, belongs open shame, to our kings, to our princes, and to our fathers, because we have sinned against you. To the Lord our God, who are mercy and forgiveness, for we have rebelled against him and have not obeyed the voice of the Lord our God by walking in his laws, which he set before us by his servants the prophets. All Israel has transgressed your law and turned aside, refusing to obey your voice. And the curse and the oath that are written in the law of Moses, the servant of God, have been poured out upon us, because we have sinned against him. He has confirmed His words which He spoke against us and against our rulers who ruled us, by bringing upon us a great calamity. For under the whole heaven there has not been done anything like what has been done against Jerusalem. As it is written in the Law of Moses, all this calamity has come upon us, yet we have not entreated the favor of the Lord our God, turning from our iniquities and gaining insight by the truth. Therefore the Lord has kept ready calamity and has brought it upon us. The Lord our God is righteous in all the works that he has done, and we have not obeyed his voice. And now, O Lord our God, who brought your people out of the land of Egypt with a mighty hand, and have made a name for yourself, as at this day we have sinned, we have done wickedness. Brothers and sisters, the hand of the Spirit of God working in one of His people, not only coming and searching the words of the prophet who said that it's going to be 70 years, but being moved by the same Spirit to come and seeking the Lord in prayer and in supplication so that this will come to fulfillment, that the Lord will be merciful towards the people of Israel. What an incredible lesson, brothers and sisters, we have there that even though a promise and a prophecy is given and written to us in the Word, we're still to seek and we owe to seek the Lord persistently in prayer, in repentance, and in confession, not only on our behalf, but on behalf of the people of God. And the Lord was not only working, brothers and sisters, in the heart of Daniel, but He's also going to work in the heart of a Gentile king so that He will bring to fruition and to happen the promise of the 70 years that He's even going to touch and stir up the heart of a Gentile, of a rebellious, of a person that is against Him. In Ezra, if you go back to chapter 1, then we are told of this majestic work of the Holy Spirit in bringing to completion providentially those prophecies that had been given by the prophet Jeremiah. Ezra chapter number one, which Those verses that are there are exactly the same words that you find in the end of 2 Chronicles chapter 36. They are very similar words. Now, pay attention to this, brothers and sisters, please, and try to be with me a little bit longer because this is very important. In the first year of Cyrus, king of Persia, that the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah might be fulfilled, the Lord stirred up the spirit of Cyrus, king of Persia." Remember that Persia had taken over Babylon. "...so that he made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom, and also put it in writing. Thus says Cyrus, king of Persia." Brothers, just please think about this. This is the greatest man of that area. This is a Gentile, a pagan king. And these are the words that are going to come out of his mouth by the stirring up of the Spirit of God. It says, The Lord, the God of heaven, has given me all kingdoms of the earth, and he has charged me to build him a house, 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, and let each survivor in whatever place he sojourns be assisted by the men of his place with silver and gold, with goods and with beasts besides free will offerings for the house. of God that is in Jerusalem. Brothers, the prophecy now is coming to happen. 70 years have finished and the Lord is going to free his people and he does it not only by stirring up the spirit and the heart of Daniel, one of his people, but the heart of a Gentile that even he himself decides to let these people go back to their land and to rebuild the house of the Lord. Brothers, 70 years have elapsed. These people that were in Judah had been living for 70 years. And 70 years is a long time. It's a whole life, right? 70 years is double my life. It's a very, very, very, very long time. And in 70 years, so many things can happen. But one of the things that can happen is that you can get used to the place where you live. that you get used to the things that you have around you. It also happens that you may multiply and that your kids may be born there because 70 years it happened. And it may happen that the kids of your kid may be born there because 70 years is a long time. Brothers, many people were taken, deported and exiled to Babylon and they indeed multiplied there in Babylon. And then in Persia, they started to multiply. Even the word of the Lord was that they were to multiply and to be fruitful there and then to pray and to support the place where they want to be. And that indeed happened. Now, 70 years after the prophecy comes to an end or to a fulfillment. Now, this king is going to say, whoever wants to go back to the land, go back. And now we're going to have three characters. We're going to be covering quickly a period, a long period of time that we could say that is around 80, or if it's easier in your mind, 100 years, a long period of time. So 70 years have taken place in the exile, but now we're going to cover 100 years of time in which people were going back to the land. This is a long period of time. and there's going to be three characters, there's going to be three people that are important for us to know that during those 100 years are going to be supporting the going back of the people of Israel. The name of the first one is given to us in chapter number 2 and his name is Zerubbabel. If you read verse 1 of chapter 2 it says, Now these were the people of the province who came up out of the captivity Are you with me, brothers and sisters, in the verse? Verse 1, it says, Now these were the people of the province who came up out of the captivity of those exiles whom Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, had carried captive to Babylonia. They returned to Jerusalem and Judah, each to his own town. They came with Zerubbabel, Yeshua, Nehemiah, which is not the Nehemiah that I had just mentioned, it's another one, Sariah, Reliah, Mordecai, Bilshan, Mizpah, Bigvi, Riham, and Banna. Now, Zerubbabel is going to be the person in charge. Now, we're going to have a list of lots of numbers there, which we are not going to read. It's all the people that came in that first return. But if we go to verse 64, we're given a number, which is approximately a total number of the people that returned. Now, brothers and sisters, remember that the king now is allowing people to go back, right? They are not captive there anymore. They can go back to Judah. Now, in verse 64 it says, the whole assembly together was 42,360 besides their male and female servants of whom there were 7,337 and they had 200 male and female singers. So, if I ask you, approximately how many people came back in that first time with the Rubabel? About 50,000 people came back. Now, brothers and sisters, this is the sad thing, and this is what we call the power of Babylon. Because brothers and sisters, this is minority. This is an incredible minority. That means that when the Spirit of God worked in the heart of the king to allow all the Jews and the descendants of the Jews to go back to their land, the vast majority of the Judahites or the Jews decided to stay. They decided to remain. They were given the possibility to return to the land, even to build the temple of their God. They had heard of Moses, Egypt, all the stories, Abraham, Isaac. They had heard all the words and all the works of God. Yet, they decided to remain. The power of Babylon, or in this case Persia, but the power of Babylon had them capture them. They had already made their lives. They were already probably speaking the language. Of course, they were speaking the language. They were doing the things that they were doing there. So when they gave them the possibility to return, they didn't. But we're told something very important. If you go back to chapter one in verse five, it says. In chapter one, verse five, it says. Then rose up," speaking of the return of the Jews, "...then rose up the heads of the fathers, houses of Judah and Benjamin, and the priests and the Levites, everyone whose spirit God had stirred to go up to rebuild the house of the Lord that is in Jerusalem." The Spirit of God had to work. in them in order to give them the genuine desire to come back and to build the temple. These first group of people that returned where they have this charge or they have this duty, brothers and sisters, of rebuilding the house of the Lord. They had not been freed from captivity. Now they can come back and build the house of the Lord. And when they returned, they were filled with the Spirit. They were filled with the desire to do that which the Lord had promised through the prophet, that they were going to be liberated. And now through Cyrus, they were given the opportunity to build the house of the Lord. The Spirit of God was within them. They were filled with the Spirit and they wanted to do it and they traveled all the way to Judah. And the first thing that they did is that they realized that building the temple is going to take a while. But something very important to build or to have or something that the temple offers is that you can actually offer sacrifices to the temple so that you can have communion with the Lord. So all of these people filled with the Spirit and deciding to have communion with the Lord, Before they start building the temple, they decide to build the altar. Remember the altar of burnt offerings that is outside the tabernacle for offering sacrifices there? So they decide to do that. This show us that they were zealous, they wanted to be in communion with the Lord. They knew that rebuilding a temple was going to take them a long time. So then if you go to chapter 3, you can read that there, that all of the people, Zerubbabel and Yeshua, who was the priest, it says in verse 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 evenings. Now, brothers, this is going long, and I have many other things to say, but I'm just going to try to make it very quickly. and concise and put this in your mind. These people came and now they build the altar to offer sacrifices and they started to plan the building up of the temple and they end up just laying the foundation of the temple. If you go to some verses afterwards, they are just rejoicing. Some of them rejoicing, some others not, but they have laid up the foundation that they have already started building. The temple, they have the foundation of the temple, they have already started, they accomplished that in the first couple of years. But they are going to face difficulties, they are going to face opposition by some people. Let me just point you to that because this is very important in chapter 4. Even though they are now offering sacrifices and they have laid the foundation and they are offering all these sacrifices and the process of building up the temple seems to be happening, Now in chapter 4, we are told that these people that returned the first time are going to face some opposition. It says in chapter 4, "...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, who was the leader of all of this group of people that had returned." That is my comment there. and the heads of the fathers' houses, and said to them, Let us build with you, for we worship your God as you do. These were people that had already been living in the land. And they said to them, Please let us build with you, because the God that you worship is the same God that we worship. These were not people that had returned from the exile in Babylon or in Persia, but they had already been living there. And it says then, And we have been sacrifices to Him ever since the days of Esarhaddon, king of Assyria, who brought us here. These are Samaritans. Remember that the north where the king of Assyria replaced the people and brought some other people? These were mixed Samaritans there. So they say, we worship the same God. Please let us build with you. We will build the temple together with you. But Zerubbabel still filled with the Spirit and stirred up in his heart to accomplish the work of the Lord. In verse 3 says, But Zerubbabel, Yeshua, and the rest of the heads of the father 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. They are saying, we are not going to mix with you. We are not going to allow that you come to build the house of the Lord, because the house of the Lord is only built with the hands of God's people. So He is cleansing that. But then in verse 4, we're told something very important. 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. Brothers, they faced opposition. They faced difficulties. And the Bible says here that they were discouraged to the point that the construction of the temple, the rebuilding of the temple is going to stop. It's going to stop for a long period of time. It's going to stop. They laid the foundation, they had the burnt offering, they were offering sacrifices there in the altar and they had the foundation, but they stopped building the temple. The Spirit of God that was within them stirred them up to come from Babylon to Judah and then to lay the foundation and to do all of these things. Now they faced... tribulation, now they faced persecution, now they faced difficulties and they were discouraged to the point that they decided not to continue doing the thing that they had been commanded to do. Now my plan was just to take you there to Haggai but now it's just going very long but if you in your own time go to the prophet Haggai in chapter 1 Then the prophet Haggai there in chapter one, he's prophesying to all of these people, just as Jeremiah prophesied to in the times of Josiah. Then Haggai in chapter number one is going to prophesy to these people and he's going to come and he's going to say, consider your ways. You're building houses for yourself, but you're not building the house of the Lord. You're doing things for your own, but you're not doing anything for the house of the Lord. In chapter 1 verse 7, it says, consider your ways of Hiah, chapter 1. And then it says, then in the end of that chapter, in the beginning of chapter 2 of the prophet Haggai, that Zerubbabel and all the people of Israel obeyed the word of the prophet and they continued and they built the temple. Brothers and sisters, I just want you to see the providential hand and the power of the preaching of the Word and the ministry of the prophets in bringing all these things to happen because now only a remnant of the people that were in exile came back and now this by the power of the Spirit and even in their backsliding when a prophet came, they obeyed by the power of the Spirit and they ended up building the temple. But just as Josiah was repairing the house and in repairing the house he found the law, it was also necessary that not only a temple will be built as they ended up building this second temple and dedicating the second temple and celebrating a Passover, but it was also needed for the people of God that the law of God will be given to them. Not only that the external building will be built up and constructed, but rather also that the words of the Lord will be given to them. So then we move from Zerubbabel onto another person that will come years after him, and his name is Ezra. So if you go quickly to Ezra, then I will just show you there quickly the work of the Lord through Ezra, So then you will see how the pattern of Josiah and the falling away is repeated here in the returning of the exiles. Brother Bernie, would you please help me just reading? In chapter number 7, Ezra chapter 7 until verse 10. Now after this, in the reign of Artaxerxes, king of Persia, Ezra, the son of Saraiah, son of Azariah, son of Hilkiah, son of Shalom, son of Zadok, son of Ahitum, son of Ammariah, son of Azariah, son of Merioth, son of Zerahiah, son of Uzzi, son of Buki, son of Abishua, son of Phineas, son of Eleazar, son of Aaron, the chief priest. This Ezra went up from Babylonia. He was a scribe skilled in the law of Moses that the Lord, the God of Israel, had given. And the king granted him all that he asked, for the hand of the Lord his God was on him. And there went up also to Jerusalem in the seventh year of Ataxerxes the king, some of the people of Israel, and some of the priests, and the Levites, and the singers, and gatekeepers, and the temple servants. And Ezra came to Jerusalem in the fifth month, which was in the seventh year of the king. For on the first day of the first month he began to go up to Babylonia, and on the first day of the fifth month It came to Jerusalem, for the good hand of his God was on him. For Ezra had said his heart to study the law of the Lord, and to do it, and to teach his statutes and rules in Israel." In Israel. Sorry, brother, just because that word is very important there. In Israel. Now, brothers and sisters, please just pay attention to this. This is like, let's say, from these 100 periods of time in which I'm talking after the 70 years, let's say that took the temple approximately 20 years to be built. They came in a couple of years, they were discouraged, they did not continue, but then the prophet came and then 20 years after that they finished the temple. Let's say that another 50 years passed and then Ezra came. Now remember, that Ezra was in Babylonia or in Babylon, and I don't know how old was he there, but he lived with the opportunity to go back to Judah at any point. Yet he had not come before. Yet he decides now to go back to Jerusalem. And the purpose of going down to Jerusalem is, what it says, to teach the Israelites or to teach the people the law of the Lord. Please pay attention to something very important, because the author of the book is giving us very difficult names to pronounce, not only because they are difficult to pronounce, but he wants us to know something very important. And that something very important, it is found in the end of verse 5, that Ezra was a descendant of who? He was a descendant of Aaron. So he was a Levite and not only a Levite, but he was a descendant of the Aaronites. He was a priest and he could be a high priest. And he was not only a high priest, but also, as he says in verse number 10, it says, for Ezra had set his heart to study the law of the Lord and to do it and to teach his statutes and rules in Israel. Now, brothers and sisters, it says in Israel, yet the ones that have returned were Judah and Benjamin because the other 10 tribes, they continue to be in the diaspora, they continue to be scattered. And this is very important because Ezra, you can see it as a second Moses. Just as Moses was taking the people out of captivity in the land of Egypt, then Ezra was concerned in keeping the people of Israel. If you go to chapter 8, you will see that he's going to offer, as a person who was very knowledgeable of the word of the Lord, that meditated in the law of God, when he offers his sacrifices, he does something very interesting. In verse 35, in chapter 8, it says, At that time, those who had come from captivity, the ones that came with Ezra, the returned exiles offered burnt offerings to the God of Israel. 12 bulls for all Israel, that is, representing each one of the tribes, 96 rams, 77 lambs, and as I've seen, offering 12 male goats. All this was a burnt offering to the Lord. They also delivered the king's commissions to the king's satraps and to the governors of the province beyond the river, which was the name of that area there, beyond the river, and they aided the people and the house of God. Now brothers, there's a whole thing there that could be very complicated, but let me just make it simple. The heart of Ezra, after he had seen that his people had returned to build the temple, was to come back to bring the power of the law, the commandments of the Lord, so that things will be done according to what God wanted. in the temple and actually to restitute and to reestablish the whole nation of Israel. Even when we read the names of the people that came with Him, He brings with Him 12 different families, potentially representing each one of the tribes, because He wanted to restore the whole nation. The other people were scattered all over the place. He wanted to restore the people of Israel. The temple had been built, now the word of the Lord was needed. When he goes back, he finds out that for many, many years, the people, that even though they had the temple, even the Levites and even the priests, they had given themselves to sexual immorality and they had given themselves to sin and they had mixed with foreign wives. Well, in the law, it says that they were not supposed to get for themselves foreign wives or foreign women for them. They had done that, even the priests. So then Ezra is going to entertain his supplication before the Lord in the same way that Daniel would do. And we're not going to address that because it's going to be very long, but brothers, we have Ezra trying to reestablish the law of the Lord. He is going to come and do supplication before the Lord and repent on behalf of the people. And this is going to end up, you know in what? This is going to end up in Israelites or in Judah, it's better, sending back their foreign wives. And if you go to the last verse of the book, to the last verse of the book in chapter 10, There is a list of all the men that were guilty of marrying foreign wives and the great sin that the people had committed. These people, brothers and sisters, think about this. They had returned from captivity. They were in their land. They were with a new temple, yet they had given their hearts to violate and to break the law of the Lord. And it says in verse 44, all these had married foreign women and some of the women had even born children. And these women, these foreign women were sent away because they were trying to cleanse. Now, there's a whole thing that we don't have the time to discuss that, but what I want you to see, brothers and sisters, is that the Lord was progressively accomplishing the promise and the prophecy that He had given to the prophet. Isaiah and also Jeremiah about what was going to take place. And then it's going to come Nehemiah and Nehemiah is going to be in charge, not all building the temple or bringing the law, but he's going to be in charge of building the walls around the city for protection so that the city will be powerful and will be protected from the enemies and they will be able to multiply. Brothers and sisters, all of these efforts ended up in the same point. People continue to give themselves to the flesh. Even though they had seen I fulfilled prophecy, even though they had been brought by the stirring up of the Spirit, to their land, even though they had seen and witnessed the building up of the temple, even though they had received the words preached by Ezra, who is, in a sense, kind of like a second Moses, bringing these people to build Israel again. They had heard the word from him. His heart was given to the law of the Lord. He taught the Torah, the law to the people. And then even Nehemiah that accomplished the building up of the walls. These people continue with their hearts disconnected from the Lord because in the end of the day, in the end of everything, brothers and sisters, it is not through the power of the flesh. It is through the power of the Spirit. The hearts of these people were for themselves. The hearts of these people were for the things of this world and not for the Lord. Malachi, the prophet, will prophesy about them, how they even in the temple, the priests will do illegal things. how they will violate the Sabbath, even after Ezra will explain to them the Torah and the law, how they will violate all of these things, how they even used the walls that Nehemiah had built for purposes that were not holy. All of these things were done by these people of Israel whose hearts were entirely away. And this is because, brothers and sisters, this temple and these people of Israel They were waiting for a greater glory. The glory of God was to enter in this temple in which the presence of God was not there. The presence of God was not in the midst of these people, even though prophecies had been accomplished and even prophets were prophesying to them. The presence of God was not among them because the presence of God will be made flesh like 400 years after that. And that person will be the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, brothers and sisters, there is a beautiful passage that I've shared with you many times. And even we sing a song. And I just want to read that passage to you because that explains to us lots of things. And that is found in Isaiah chapter 26. In Isaiah chapter 26, We are told very important spiritual truths about the city of God, about Zion, about Jerusalem, about the walls of the city of God, and about the strength of the people of God. Not establishing a temple, not establishing man-made walls, not establishing upon human understanding of the commandments of God, but rather what it says in Isaiah 26. In that day, this song will be sung in the land of Judah. We have a strong city. He sets up salvation as walls and bulwarks. This is God. Open the gates that the righteous nation that keeps faith may enter in. You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you because he trusts in you. That's God. Trust in the Lord forever, for the Lord God is an everlasting rock, for He has humbled the inhabitants of the height, the lofty city. He laid it low, laid it low to the ground, cast it to the dust, the foot tramples it, the feet of the poor, the steps of the needy." Brothers and sisters, apart from the Spirit of God within us, we are like the children of Josiah. Apart from the workings of the Spirit of God, we are like the rebellious people that were discouraged and did not continue with the workings because they were affected by the oppression of people. Or we are like the Levites or like the priests that were corrupting the temple, even though there was a new temple, even though they had seen the prophecies being accomplished. Apart from the working of the Spirit in our lives, We are gone. That's why Christianity is about faith. It's about putting our eyes in the Lord Jesus Christ. It is about not building strong walls. It is not about understanding deep things. It's not about even belonging to this place or to this family or to being raised in this context. It's about the Lord Jesus Christ being reality in our hearts. And this is... He is our strong city. He is the one that builds the walls. He is the one that keeps us in peace when our mind stays in Him. He is the one that restores us and keeps us and protects us from the enemies. He is the one that keeps us in His hand. He is the one that makes us His temple. He is the one that brings us to His presence. He is the one that keeps us until the end, just by grace, through faith in Christ. We see that, right? Amen.