This evening, we are beginning the books of Ezra and Nehemiah. We'll explain why closer to the end of our time here this evening. But we are taking both of them because commentators are pretty sure Ezra and Nehemiah are intended to be one book, not two, on Jewish Tradition, Jewish history, they were always written as one book, and it wasn't until later on when translations started popping up that they became two separate books, both of them arguably written by Ezra himself, though there is some dispute over that. This evening, we are going to cover a massive amount of text, Ezra 1-1. And after this, we will speed up. So, brace yourselves for what's coming. I'll read the text and then we will proceed with just some thoughts over Ezra 1.1 as kind of an introduction to the rest of the book. For those of you who have a hard time flipping right past it, very easy to do, look just before Job and after 2 Chronicles and you will find Ezra and Nehemiah. So, Ezra 1.1. 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, so that he made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom and also put it in writing. To be continued. Verse 2. And the reason we end with verse 1 is because before we can get to what Cyrus says, we need to know a little bit about the context in which he said it, and a little bit about the context in which it was received. And the reason for that is when God speaks, He doesn't speak into a void, and He doesn't speak from a void. God has a perspective on the world. And it's not the same perspective everybody else in the world has. which is one of the things that is unique to the canon of scripture. It is written in such a way as to show us what is God's perspective over these things. And there's a great deal of overlap in what God sees in the world and what we see in the world. For example, it's very obvious to God and to us that Cyrus was king of Persia, and this all happened in the first year of his reign. Pretty simple. But there are some things that are not so simple, such as Order that the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah might be fulfilled the Lord stirred up the spirit of Cyrus that is not quite so obvious to the casual observer if you are a Persian living in Cyrus's first year according to this dating That's a little less Common of a perspective to have but that is the one the Bible gives to us because that's God so God speaks from a perspective and he has a context and he speaks to people who have a perspective and are situated in a place in the world in order that they might receive the Word in a way that is beneficial to them, though sometimes a little bit over their heads. So the title I would give this evening, or the main point of spending all this time on Ezra 1.1, is so that we can see God's Word comes to a people in a context. It means they were not blank slates. When God speaks His Word, He doesn't speak to blank slates who simply take in the information in a pure way, process it in a pure manner, and then react accordingly as though there are no other factors bearing in on them. That's not how it works. We have preconceived notions. And so, if I were, for example, I did a lot of this as I was sitting at Caribou Coffee waiting for a meeting. If I were to just walk up to the barista behind the counter and said, 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. Would have that made any sense? I think they might have been a little confused and a little irritated. and I'm just wondering what was going on. It wouldn't make sense for me to do that because the context is all wrong. So, in order to understand the significance of what happens in Ezra 1.1 and everything following, we need to understand the context that the Word was spoken from and spoken into. And the encouraging thing that we can find is God knows your circumstances. not generically, but very, very specifically. He knows your context and he speaks to it. So, for example, we can turn, for helpful direction on this, to Revelation 2. God addresses, or Jesus in particular, addresses all seven churches of Asia Minor in the same way. And it always begins with this. So this is Revelation 2-4. I know your works. Now he doesn't start with your works with all of the churches, but he does start with I know I know the circumstances that you're experiencing. I know the things you're dealing with. I know what's happening at your location. I know the cultural context around you. And so he goes on, I know your works, your toil, and your patient endurance, and how you cannot bear with those who are evil, but have tested those who call themselves apostles and are not, and found them to be false. I know you are enduring patiently and bearing up for my namesake and have not grown weary. But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first." And he continues on. Jesus knows where the people of Ephesus live. He knows their culture is idolatrous. He knows they're surrounded by lying people who want to persecute Christians simply because they're Christians. He knows the violence, the sensuality, the moral backwardness of the culture according to God's decree and will. And he knows the Ephesians are there. He knows the things the Ephesians have done well, and he knows the things they have not done so well. Jesus speaks to that particular context very specifically. He doesn't speak to them broadly. He speaks specifically, and by inference, He speaks to us the same way. So, God knows their circumstances, and He knows our context, both corporately and individually. So He knows the political scene in which we live. He knows the things produced by Hollywood. He knows the business practices that we engage in very concretely. He knows what Walmart does. He knows what Target does. And He knows how we relate to those things. He knows your family life. He knows the challenges you face at work. He knows how well you handle your abundance of money, or how well you handle your lack of money. He knows all of those things, and He speaks to them, not generically, but very specifically. And that's why we must be people saturated by the Word of God. Because if we're not saturated by it, we don't know what He's saying in our context. And so, for example, if you know people who are not walking in God's way, and it burns you up a little bit inside, remember that God delights to set captives free. Zechariah 9.11, As for you, because of the blood of my covenant, I will set your prisoners free from the waterless pit. That's a passage in a much greater context dealing with God redeeming people. We ought to be optimistic that God's going to redeem those around us who are not set free yet. And we're to work that way. So the words are not spoken into a void, and context is king. That is an interpretive rule. So when you're reading the Bible, context is king. If I'm going to know what I'm reading, I have to know the context. But context and reception is probably one of the biggest reasons two people can hear the same thing, one of them be terribly off-put by it, and another think it's the most profound thing they've ever heard in their life. For example, how many of you have ever sat in a circle of people in a get-to-know-you sort of setting? And you're going around the room, and as is often the case, one person moderates it, and they ask questions. You get to one person, you say, well, you have, are you married? And this person said, absolutely I'm married, wonderful marriage, husband's best marriage for this reason, this reason, this reason, can't, it's just wonderful, absolutely wonderful. You have someone right next to that saying, amen, just great. But in that same circle, you also have someone who's divorced and someone who's wanted so badly to get married and it's just never happened for them. Do they hear those words differently? Absolutely, they do. And most of the time, we do not know the context other people are living in. That's why we are to be very careful with our words. That's why we're to be very patient with people who aren't so careful with their words, because they don't know. If they knew, they'd probably act differently. Most of the time, I think you can give them the benefit of that doubt. If they knew what they had, they wouldn't grumble about it. And I can say that as someone who doesn't have what they have and desperately want it. And so, context of reception is significantly important. And we don't know, most of the time, the context we speak into, but God does. And God gives the word He does for encouragement and support and rebuke, comfort, consolation, correction. All of those things come at us from one word, and isn't that what makes Scripture so spectacular? So, in what context are we dealing with then? in the first year of Cyrus, king of Persia. A lot has happened since we left off in 2 Kings. Let's flip back there just a little bit. We could go to 2 Chronicles, but since we went through the Kings series instead of the Chronicles series a couple years ago, we'll pick back up there. 2 Kings 25. Just to skip across the pond of 1 and 2 Chronicles. 2 Kings 25, 8 through 12. This is pretty much where we left off. In the fifth month, on the seventh day of the month, that was the 19th year of King Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon. Nebuchadnezzar, the captain of the bodyguard, a servant of the king of Babylon, came to Jerusalem, and he burned the house of the Lord, and the king's house, and all the houses of Jerusalem, every great house he burned down. And all the army of the Chaldeans, who were with the captain of the guard, broke down the walls around Jerusalem. and the rest of the people who were left in the city, and the deserters who had deserted to the king of Babylon, together with the rest of the multitude, Nebuchadnezzar, the captain, oh, sorry, Nebuchadnezzar, the captain of the guard, carried into exile. But the captain of the guard left some of the poorest of the land to be vinedressers and plowmen. We ended second kings with the exile. The house of the Lord is burned down, the city of Jerusalem is destroyed, and the walls around Jerusalem are demolished. That's where we left off. People get hauled away. The best people of the land get hauled away. That happened somewhere around 587 and 586 BC. Ezra 1-1 is approximately 48-49 years later in around 538 B.C. So about 50 years have passed since the beginning of the deportation in 2 Kings until now. Now, the Babylonians are called Chaldeans, so when you see that in the text, don't be confused by it. Same people. They decimated Jerusalem. And their policy, as they hauled people off, was after we conquer an area, we're going to pull out all of the rich, all of the wealthy, all of the powerful, and all of the most able people, and we're going to scatter them throughout the kingdom. But the very cream of the crop we're going to take to our capital city of Babylon, and hopefully they can be some benefit to us. That was their policy. So after we go in, we decimate an area and we just scatter the people like crazy. That's how we keep our subjects under control. Forty years. We're going to back up just a second. So Babylon destroys them all. Babylon is north of Israel. So you have Israel here, Babylon here, and then further north yet, you have the Persians and the Medes. This is happening sort of while Babylon is the kingdom of the world. The Medes are the ruling kingdom up there, and they have as a subjugated kingdom what is often called a vassal state. the Persians. That means the Persians are subjected to the king of the Medes, they pay taxes to the Medes, they basically do the bidding of the Medes. Cyrus decides about ten years before he becomes king in Ezra 1-1, I don't like this very much. So Cyrus, king of Persia, rebels against the Mede kingdom and he overthrows them. After he's done with the Persians, he starts moving towards Babylon. And he moves a little bit closer and a little bit closer, and all of a sudden, one drunken night, on behalf of the Babylonians, they divert the river and they infiltrate the city through the water system and overtake it. And the city of Babylon was said to be so big that he could take the entire surrounding area before he took its epicenter. And nobody knew what was going on because they were all drunk at a great festival. So he takes over the city with virtually no fight. That history is not recorded in scripture for us. We don't have the Persians taking over the Medes and then the Persians taking over the Babylonians. We get that from extra biblical sources. But the policy of the Medes was different than the policy of the Babylonians, or the policy of the Persians, excuse me. So the Persians have this policy in mind. We take over Babylon. We now control everything the Babylonian Empire controlled. How do we keep our people subjected? I know. We'll send them back to their land. If I send people back to the land they came from, they're going to love me. It was the evil Babylonians who hauled them away. So as a policy, Cyrus says, I'm going to send people back to their original homeland, and I'm going to give them their blessing. Can you imagine how favorable Cyrus was? He was very much enjoyed by the people other than the Babylonians who he conquered. All of the people that were conquered by Babylon, they loved Cyrus. The Jews loved Cyrus. Wonderful guy. Because he let them go back. whereas the Babylonians were absolutely hated. Now that happened, and Ezra reads all of those events that aren't recorded in Scripture. He sees them this way, that the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah the prophet might be fulfilled. All of that history with the Persians and the Medes, all of that history with the Persians and the Babylonians takes place in order that the word that God had spoken might happen. All of it. But we don't have it in Scripture. It's all there for that very purpose. So what the Persians do, and what the Medes do, and what the Babylonians do is significant to the plan of God. It's significant to God fulfilling His purposes. Do we think that way about our own political contemporaries and adversaries? Do we think what God does in Russia is significant towards filling His ultimate plan for humanity? Or what He does in Korea, Britain, Canada. Well, maybe not Canada, but Canada too. Right? All of those places. What God does in those countries is significant for His plan for the end of the age. It still is. In order that the Word of the Lord might come true, God does this thing. It's not recorded in Scripture. But it is yet, nevertheless, very important to what He's seeking to do. They are all part of filling the purposes that God has in mind. And fortunately for us, God has given us His mind. 1 Timothy 2. we get a glimpse of the mind of God. 1 Timothy 2, 1-6. First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgiving be made for all people, for kings, and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way. This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and man, the man Jesus Christ, who gave himself as a ransom for all, which is the testimony given at the proper time." Notice what God's desire is. Verse 4, God desires all people to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth. He wants all people, everywhere, to recognize God as Creator, Sustainer, Redeemer, glorious in Christ. That's what He wants. That's what He's after. And what God does in the world, in all of the countries of all of the world, in all of the tribes, all of the nations, all of it, He does in order that this end might come to pass. Now remember why Israel was hauled away. It was rebellion against God, right? So Israel, as a nation of priests, said that God was not sufficient enough, and so they engaged in idolatry. They said that God was insignificant, and so they brought Him bad sacrifices. They said that God doesn't really care about the other people around here, and so they engaged in social injustices. That's what they communicated about God to the world, and God says, that's not who I am. You're not going to represent me like this. And so, since they reject God, God rejects them, as he said he would in the terms of the covenant, and he sends them out. But then, to fulfill the purposes that God had set in mind since before the foundation of the world, and to fulfill what he spoke throughout his word, God raises up Cyrus, not as a random player on the stage of history, but for a very specific purpose. Because he spoke a word, and he said this word is going to happen. And in order that, God himself might be glorified. Before we go to Jeremiah, let's turn to Isaiah 45. I've mentioned this before, I think this is one of the most helpful passages in so many different levels of interpreting scripture. It's just a key text to a lot of things, and it's certainly key to what we're after here this evening. So we're going to read verses 1 through 7 of Isaiah 45 here. Thus says the Lord to his anointed, to Cyrus, Remember, Isaiah is before Cyrus ever shows up on the scene. This is while Babylon is still king of the world. The Medes still have Persia themselves as subjected servants. So Persia is just a nobody. And God says, Thus says the Lord to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have grasped, to subdue nations before him and to loose the belts of kings, to open doors before him, the gates that may not be closed. I will go before you and level the exalted places. I will break in pieces the doors of bronze and cut through the bars of iron. I will give you the treasures of darkness and the hordes in secret places. that you may know that it is I, the Lord, or in the Hebrew text, Yahweh, the God of Israel, who called you by your name. For the sake of my servant Jacob and Israel, my chosen, I call you by your name. I name you, though you do not know me. I am the Lord, and there is no other. Besides me there is no God. I equip you, though you do not know me, that, in order that, for the purpose of, that people may know from the rising of the sun to the west and from the west that there is none besides me. I am Yahweh and there is no other. I form light and create darkness. I make well-being and create calamity or evil. I am the Lord. I am Yahweh who does all these things." Now as God says, this is why I'm raising up Cyrus. How does that match 2 Timothy? In order that all might come to the knowledge of the truth, right? I am Yahweh, there is none beside me. Israel didn't show that to the world. And it's not coincidental that when Jesus is speaking to the seven churches in Revelation, to the one who says, you are not shining, I will remove you, Your lampstand will not shine any light if it does not shine any light. Same thing with Israel. Raises up Cyrus in order that he might be glorified through the world. Now that's not the text that Ezra focuses on. Commentators will take us to Jeremiah 29, after Isaiah. And this is the text it would appear as though Ezra focuses on in verse 1 of chapter 1. So, Jeremiah 29, 10 to 14. For thus says the Lord, when 70 years are completed for Babylon, I will visit you, and I will fulfill to you my promise and bring you back to this place. For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon Me and come and pray to Me, and I will hear you. And you will seek me and find me. And when you seek me with your whole heart, I will be found by you, declares the Lord. And I will restore your fortunes and gather you from all the nations and all the places where I have driven you, declares the Lord. And I will bring you back to the place from which I sent you into exile." God is speaking to the people who He's scattered. This is the Israelite nation He's talking to. And He says, I've scattered you. But I will bring you back. I'm going to return you to your home. And when I do, you will glorify Me in front of the entire world. It will happen. I have plans for you that you might glorify Me, which is a good thing for you. I will do that for you. Ezra knows that he remembers Jeremiah's words and he says all of this stuff that's happened with Medes the Persians the Babylonians all that boring history stuff that happened in order that Jeremiah 29 might happen That's what it's all about. God directing the course of history into such a way as to bring that. And I think there might be two reasons why Ezra focuses on Jeremiah instead of Isaiah. One, the matter of timing, right? So that's significant in the Jeremiah text. After 70 years for Babylon, well, Ezra points out first year of Cyrus, king of Persia. Second, it is a matter of Israel's national and religious restoration. That's what Jeremiah talks about. And that's, incidentally, what the book of Ezra is largely about. The restoration of the nation of Israel, especially in regards to its religious life. And whichever he would have spoken, the point is explicit. Verse 1, continuing on, the Lord stirred up the spirit of Cyrus, king of Persia. Ten years before Cyrus did this, he became king of Persia. This in the first year of Cyrus, king of Persia, is the year after he took over Babylon. So, he throws off the chains of the Medes ten years earlier. Cyrus is now king. He comes in and he decimates Babylon. That's in the first year, king of Persia. When it says the Lord stirred up the spirit of Cyrus, king of Persia, he didn't do it in a void. Remember, Cyrus' national policy, after I take control of a place, and especially in Babylon's case, where they hauled people from all over the world to their capital, my policy is I send them back. We often might think to ourselves, I know I should be more patient. God's gonna have to make me more patient. That's just how it's going to have to work, because this is how I am. The decree that God gave for Cyrus to let people go back was not contrary to Cyrus' policies. Cyrus had the policy in his mind, I'll let people go back home. That's what God did. That's what He stirred up His Spirit to do. Send them back. That was His policy. God didn't go against the grain of Cyrus' policies. This isn't some out-of-the-blue thing that happened. It's still something the Lord did. So He doesn't work contrary to Cyrus. Cyrus was not stubborn against God's will as this happened. God did it through Cyrus. And we often wait for God to move us against our natural patterns. Typically, it doesn't work quite the way we want it to. Because God does not work in a mechanical way. God's word of 70 years was not going to fail. The temple was going to get rebuilt. The city walls of Jerusalem were going to get rebuilt, just like he said they were, but it was not going to happen apart from the will and the work of the people who rebuilt it. That's how it got rebuilt, was through the will and the work of the people who rebuilt it. God used those people to fulfill what he had in mind from the beginning. And so our sanctification is not all that mechanical either. We do become more gentle people. We become more patient people as time goes on. I hope we do. But he often does it through ways that we wouldn't want him to and we wouldn't expect him to do it. We don't become more patient by some out-of-the-blue mystical experience. We become more patient by being put in circumstances that absolutely require more patience than what we have. And it forces us into that mold. So he doesn't change my personality on the turn of a dime. He puts me in circumstances that are more than I can bear in order that I might rely and trust on him, and that is what makes me a more patient, a more enduring sort of person. I don't think the Israelites expected God to raise someone up. If he hadn't told them, they wouldn't have expected him to raise someone up who wasn't their Messiah. And by the way, the Jews often refer to Cyrus in very messianic sort of terms. He is the one who freed us. He set our captives free. He let us go back home. We worship God because of Cyrus. So Cyrus is elevated in tremendous ways. So he's kind of given that tremendous status, but that's not quite how they would have expected him to do it had he not spoken by Jeremiah, had he not spoken by Isaiah. All of this is to say the reading of the pleasure of providence can be a very difficult task sometimes. I don't think God was pleased that hundreds of thousands of Babylonian women and children were beaten, killed, raped, pillaged, plundered, reshuffled. I don't think that was pleasing to God. I think he was very unhappy about Cyrus doing that sort of thing to the people he overtook. God doesn't like war, but that doesn't mean it was not his will. And it happened in order that the explicit word that God spoke might come to pass. And so we need to be very careful when we have our expectations for what to see from God. Let's not rely on things that He didn't explicitly speak. Our expectations are to be formed by the very things that He has said is going to happen, not by the things He never said. And sometimes that line becomes kind of ambiguous for us. Revelation 6, we'll go there one more time. It's a Revelation sort of evening. One of my favorite scenes in Revelation because of how helpful it is, not because of what it depicts. Revelation 6, 9-11, When he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the witness they had borne. They cried out with a loud voice, O sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long before you will judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth? Then they were each given a white robe and told to rest a little longer until the number of their fellow servants and their brothers should be complete, who were to be killed as they themselves had been. Is it God's will that His people be led like sheep to the slaughter? Absolutely it is Paul mentions that even in Romans like the most theological book you have that passage crop up We are like sheep led to the slaughter. This is what God wills. This is how the gospel spreads There's a saying in church history right the This the blood of the martyrs was the seed of the church and It's through persecution that the church really thrives and spreads. It's not through times of peace and contentment and comfort. Does it please God that Christians are led like sheep to the slaughter? The whole book of Revelation would tell you otherwise. The wrath of God comes on the world because his people are slaughtered like sheep. So we can quote the passage, God's in the heavens and He does whatever He pleases, which is true if you're very careful about what you mean by pleases. Does it please Him in the sense that that is His will? Yes. Does it please Him in the sense that He likes it? No. That's why reading Providence is such tricky business. Because if we're not careful, we'll blend those two things. We'll think, God likes everything he decrees. Everything God has happened in the world is something that brings a smile to his face. And that's just not true. His own son's death being a great example of that instance. So when it comes to our own political leaders, here we're dealing with Cyrus, king of Persia. Our own political leaders, do they carry out the will of providence? Do they carry out God's will? Yes. Is God pleased by all that they do? No, I don't think so. Not so much. Do they yet carry out and embody and reflect God's sovereign authority and rightful power, rightful authority and true power. I think they do. Psalm 82. I just happened to come across this this week. And when I put it in the context of our political season, which is only increasing, it's really fascinating to me. How do I think about the people who are running for president their vice presidents For the next couple of months. How should I think about them and for I'm afraid a set of them for the next four years? Psalm 82 God has taken this place in the divine council in the midst of the gods. He holds his judgment. That is he is king of kings and lord of lords How long will you judge unjustly and show partiality to the wicked? That is a question God poses to earthly rulers. How long will you, earthly rulers, earthly kings and lords, judge unjustly and show partiality to the wicked? Give justice to the weak and to the fatherless. Maintain the right of the afflicted and the destitute. Rescue the weak and needy. Deliver them from the hand of the wicked." End quote. I think this is reflection then on those kings and leaders. They have neither knowledge nor understanding. They walk about in darkness. All the foundations of the earth are shaken. Now verse 6, God speaking, I said, you are God's sons of the Most High, all of you. Nevertheless, like men you shall die and fall like any prince. And then the psalmist cries out, "'Arise, O God, judge the earth, for you shall inherit all the nations.'" Do you think of Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump in verse 6 sorts of terms? "'I said, you are God's sons of the Most High, all of you.'" They're created in the divine image. they have a unique authority or might end up with a unique authority to carry out the mandate of Genesis 2, subdue the earth, have dominion over it, rule the peoples. Paul can say in Romans 13, governments are instituted by God, every one of them. I rarely think of God considering any president, current, past, or future, in verse 6 sorts of terms. I have said, you are gods and sons of the Most High, all of you. Come back to Cyrus, king of Persia, Ezra 1-1. In the first year of Cyrus, king of Persia, that the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah the prophet might be fulfilled, The Lord stirred up the spirit of Cyrus, king of Persia, a pagan king, a king who you would by all means think doesn't know the Lord, and according to Isaiah, really doesn't. God still accomplishes his purpose through that. And we're going to end where we started. and the first year of Cyrus, king of Persia. This pattern takes us back. Remember, we were to think first and second kings, this is something that cropped up quite often, right? In this year of this king, this and this happened, right? So the very phraseology of verse one takes us back to first and second kings, first and second chronicles. This is a continuation of the story. My tendency, and I think a lot of our tendencies, is to think of Old Testament Israel in terms of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy. You have the Torah, and then you have the history, and it ends at 2 Kings when they're hauled away into exile. That's the end of the story for the Jews until the Messiah comes. Right? That's not true. Ezra and Nehemiah continue that story. The Messiah is not here yet. God is still fulfilling purposes for the people of Israel before the Messiah comes. Exile is not the last word. It's not even the last word before the Messiah comes. This is a continuation. God is progressing His plan of redemptive history right through Ezra Nehemiah. His plan isn't exile, oh, Messiah. He goes beyond that. There's more to the story than exile, Messiah. The story continues with God fulfilling his promises in order that the word of the Lord might be fulfilled through that he spoke through Jeremiah. God's still fulfilling his plans in this time period. It's not an end. It's not an interlude. It is a continuation in the same way 1 and 2 Kings are a continuation. We are not to read Ezra and Nehemiah. as the Israelites looking and trying to bring back and relive the good old days. It's not how we read it. That would be a mistake. That is to say, God is not fulfilling any promises here. We want to go back and relive the time when God was fulfilling something He spoke. We want to go back in the past and relive days that were better than these days are. That's the way to misread Ezra-Nehemiah. We have country songs written about the good old days. The Judds sing a song, Grandpa, tell me about the good old days. There's some contemporary songs, I don't even know who writes them because there's so many country artists now. Remember When is another country song, thinking back to when times were good, when Coke was just a Coke and all of these lyrics go along with it. And I enjoy them, they make me chuckle and they make me think nostalgically I do remember that. I remember when I was driving tractors six years old. Who would trust that? Who would do that? Who would put their kid on the road on a tractor when they're 12 years old? Don't even have a driver's license yet. Take this to the field. I think nostalgically of that. And I want to go back in my past and relive the good old glory days. That is a tremendous mistake. God progresses history. We are much closer now to the second coming of Christ than we were when I was 12. And when you were 12, it is a mistake to want to relive days that were legitimately more comfortable and easier than the days are now. That's not our goal. Our goal is to track with God as He continues to fulfill His promises even now. And we look forward to the day when God is going to fully fulfill those promises. We always are a forward-looking people. We are not a people who look back and say, give me that back. We are a people who look forward and say, God is bringing something new and the road to get there is awful. But He's bringing me something new, and He's bringing me something so much better than what I have now. And even though this is rougher than what I had then, and there are elements of that I wish I had, we're never looking to relive past days. We're not looking to do that culturally. We don't want to do it politically. We don't want to do it religiously. We're always looking forward. Because God looks forward. He doesn't take us back. This is a continuation of the story. And it does it just by the very phraseology it uses. In the first year of Cyrus, king of Persia. And then we move on, and we see just how God brings his promises to pass for the Israelites. And we'll do that in subsequent weeks.