Jesus, we do lift up your name as being the name that is above all names. We lift up your name as extending to the heavens beyond and over all things in this world and all things in heaven. To you have been given authority and power and dominion. All authority in heaven on earth belongs to you, and so we lift you up as being the greatest one that we can set our eyes on. We thank you for the opportunity to come and praise you. We thank you for the opportunity to hear from your word at such incredible convenience, and we pray that you would bless our time here this evening. We pray that we would see you more clearly for what we have done here. We pray that you would be pleased with the meditations of our heart and the words of our lips. And we pray that as we leave from here that you would expand our hearts to reach the farthest reaches of the world and the farthest reaches of our own neighborhoods. That we would be people who are so anxious to see your name glorified among the nations. We pray that you would be glorified among us, and we pray that you would be glorified among the nations. Lord, send us into your vineyard to gather the harvest. We ask for your wisdom, we ask for your mercy, and we ask for your grace this evening as we prepare ourselves for that very thing, and we ask it in Christ's name, amen. You may be seated. Ezra 310 is where we're going to pick up this evening. We went through the end of Ezra 3 last week, but it's worth going back and picking up just a little bit as well on our way into chapter 4. We're only going to go through verse 6 of chapter 4. I'll read Ezra 3, 10 through chapter 4, verse 5 actually is where we're going to end. Now we'll read through verse 6. Most of us have a paragraph break after 6. So Ezra 3.10, And when the builders laid the foundation of the temple of the Lord, the priests in their vestments came forward with trumpets, and the Levites, the sons of Asaph, with cymbals to praise the Lord, according to the directions of David, king of Israel. And they sang responsibly, praising and giving thanks to the Lord, for He is good, for His steadfast love endures forever toward Israel. And all the people shouted with a great shout when they praised the Lord, because the foundation of the house of the Lord was laid. But many of the priests and Levites and heads of the fathers' houses, old men who had seen the first house, wept with a loud voice when they saw the foundations of this house being laid, though many shouted aloud for joy, so that the people could not distinguish the sound of the joyful shout from the sound of the people's weeping, for the people shouted with a great shout, and the sound was heard far away. 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 and the heads of the father's houses and said to them, let us build with you for we worship your God as you do and we have been sacrificing to him ever since the days of Ashardon, king of Syria, who brought us here. But Zerubbabel, Jeshua, and the rest of the heads of the fathers' 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. 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. And in the reign of Hesurus, in the beginning of his reign, they wrote accusations against the inhabitants of Judah and Jerusalem. The Hebrew text I think would put verse 6 in with verse 7 and following, so we'll be hitting that again next week. Last week we started with the mention of sometimes it's worth having a Bible lesson. an exploration in how to read the Bible a little bit better. And in doing that, we mentioned that the authors of scripture, along with our own historians, write with a purpose in mind, biases and agendas, something they're trying to communicate beyond the mere facts of the text, something worth keeping in mind. And it's important to remember that, because what we see isn't always what we're looking for. So what's presented to us at face value is important. What we see helps us find what we're looking for, but sometimes we're looking for something a little bit beyond a mere skimming or a mere surface reading of the text. For those of you who are in the adult Sunday school class we did two summers ago, we did how to read your Bible for all it's worth. And in there they go through how to read narrative as effectively as possible. And one of the things they bring out about that is there are three levels of narrative. different layers, if you will, and I would put it in the visual aid of concentric rings. So there's an inner ring, an outer ring, and an outer ring. And when I mention concentric circles, what I don't mean is there is more of a heart of the matter, and then there's these other peripheral things. That's not the way I mean it. What I mean is there is a limited perspective, a limited scope to view things, Then there is a more expanded scope through which we read the text, and then there's an even broader, more expanded scope yet through which we read the text. So if we were to think of it in those terms, the innermost concentric ring, how we would read the text is seeing what are the facts, right? So the things that are presented to us most on the surface. And what we have in the case of Ezra, for example, is we see people coming back from the exile, we see the things that Zerubbabel and Joshua do, all of those things. Perhaps they were motivated by political or military concerns, perhaps even theological concerns. is why they do what they do. We can think back in Israel's history, Jeroboam. When Jeroboam and Rehoboam, the two respective kings of the northern and southern kingdoms of Israel, when Jeroboam rebels, he pulls his people out as best he can from worshiping at Jerusalem. That's a political and economic concern. If you're the king of the northern kingdom, you don't want your people going down to the southern kingdom to worship their God. That's bad economically, it's bad militarily, it's bad politically. People will put their allegiance with the king of Jerusalem instead of you. So Jeroboam puts up two sites of worship, one in the north of the northern kingdom, in Dan, and one in the south, in Bethel. So there's this, what individuals do in the text, in God's interaction with individuals. That is perhaps the more simplistic or the most simplistic reading of the text we can have. We just notice, what are people doing? Often from this case, we will try and draw moral lessons, which I think is usually a mistake in narrative. So, for example, Jacob's family. We can see how favoritism runs through Jacob's family. Jacob favors Joseph over the rest of his sons, and it creates problems. And so we come to the moral conclusion, don't show favoritism in your family. that's a true principle, it's just the wrong place to gain the principle. A narrative isn't generally presenting for us moral principles, though we can sometimes pick some up a little bit, and some of them are certainly true, but it can certainly lead us in the wrong direction. So this is what we see. That's the easiest, lightest reading of the text. We see what's presented very obviously for us. And if we were to expand our scope, though, there's more to the text than simply that. And it shows us how God is achieving His objective. God has an objective in mind. The second ring out shows us how God is doing that. And so it brings a lot more of divine objective into the picture. It's not merely about individuals, it's not about Jacob, it's not about Joseph, it's not about Zerubbabel, it's not about any of those per se, but it's how God is using them to achieve God's own ends. For that we need to look outside the narrative of Joseph. So if we are to see what God is using Joseph for, and the broad biblical theme, we need to look outside Genesis 37 to Genesis 50. We need to look beyond that. And so it gives us a larger understanding. It shows us how God uses not just individuals, but nations as a part of his plan. He uses supernatural powers and principalities. He directs the course of history. If we are to understand any part of Scripture well, we need to remember everything from creation in Genesis all the way to the end of the age at the end of Revelation, all of those things. We need to hold both of those in mind as we read any part of Scripture. Now, that requires much more rigorous thought and a much more challenging reading of a text. So when we come to Ezra, we can ask ourselves questions such as, how does Zerubbabel and Jeshua and all of the heads of the father's houses relate to the nation of Israel, not just after the exile, but how do they relate to Israel before the exile? How do they relate to the church in the New Testament? How do they relate to all of the scope of history? That's what I mean by expanding our vision a little bit as we read the text, and what Gordon Fee and Douglas Stewart would call the second level of reading narrative. And the third level, expanded out just a little bit again, God combats the forces of evil. I think maybe a better way to think of that most expanded concentric ring is to ask the question, what does it mean for God to defeat evil? So if level two is how God is going to get there, level three is what exactly is God after anyway? We could think of it this way. Since we are missing the Super Bowl, let's bring just a little bit of it to us. The innermost concentric ring is what the individual players are doing during any given play. The second concentric ring, a little bit more expanded. How? Is this team going to defeat the other team? What are the plays they're going to enact in order to come out ahead? And the third, largest concentric ring, is what's the end of this? What's the goal you're striving towards? Which is, of course, to win the game, right? It's to defeat the forces of evil of the opposing side, right? So that's kind of how the three levels of narrative would work in concentric sorts of rings. And it's worth mentioning Because as we think about all three of those levels as we read a text, which most of the time we've been camping out in ring two, by the way, as we go through Ezra and Nehemiah. I'm hoping to expand that, break out of that habit. But as we view what God does in history, what He does as a result of who He is and what He's trying to do. God acts out of character. He acts out of purpose and out of objective. And so, reading narrative, rather than looking for things like moral principles, rather than looking for things like, how should I live in light of this, per se, is to ask the question, what is God after and how is he getting there? Why does God do what he does? That's what narrative presents for us. So that's the answer. The question is, how is God getting there? and narrative provides the answer for us. So, this evening as we look at Ezra 3.10 through 4.6, I think we can pull out of it that God magnifies His goodness and gives His beloved disappointments, which magnify His goodness. So, God gives, God is good, He acts out of His goodness, and in that He gives disappointments But those disappointments eventually lead to a greater magnification of His goodness. And we'll walk through that piece by piece as we go through the text. So God magnifies His goodness. How does He do that? This is what I'm calling the innermost concentric ring. So what are the facts of the text? How does God display His goodness as we read these passages? I think we can conclude, Israel is back in the land. God promised her. The altar is rebuilt under the leadership of Jeshua. That's an obvious display of God's goodness. The foundations of the temple have had a start under the leadership of Zerubbabel. That's a good start. That is a display of God's goodness. Last week we mentioned in chapter 3, verse 3, that the people built the altar in spite of, or perhaps because of, the fear of the peoples of the lands. That's what it says, the people around them is the peoples of the lands. Ezra 4.1 gives us a little bit of perspective on who those people are. They are adversaries of Judah and Benjamin. Now it's possible and probably even likely that after the northern kingdom was exiled, remember the Assyrians came, they took away the northern kingdom and their Method of controlling rebellion in the kingdom was after you remove people from an area You bring other people from other nations in and you settle them there. So as Israel was taken out and other nations around Israel conquered They do a granny shuffle That's what the Assyrians do, and they throw people from one country into another country, and they just mix the whole bag. That way you're not united with people that you knew before, right? So the way we control rebellion in the kingdom is by making sure that you don't know who's around you and that you can't unite with them, because you're going to have different religious perspectives, you're going to have different political ideas, you're going to have different interests. You want back your land, they want back their land, but guess what? They're two different lands, so how are you gonna unite to fight together? And so the Assyrians did a granny shuffle with all of the nations they conquered. Just kind of mixed everything together. What happened though, as we'll see in just a little bit, in that reshuffling, was that there were some people in the Northern Kingdom who had a desire, at least in word, to worship the God that's worshipped in Jerusalem. And so, What we have then is, though in 3.3 they're called the peoples of the lands, they rebuilt the altar, theoretically, after Jerusalem was demolished. So Northern Kingdom wiped away. 150 years later, after Jerusalem has been exiled and burned to the ground, the people, theoretically, of the Northern Kingdom come, they build an altar in Jerusalem where the original altar was, and they're worshiping the gods of the people of the southern kingdom of Judah and Jerusalem so it was probably a makeshift altar put up in Jerusalem that existed before Zerubbabel and Joshua get back to Jerusalem there's probably an altar there though it is an unsanctified altar it is a makeshift altar it's not made as the author of Ezra would say according to the rule of the law of Moses, the man of God, or as it is written, or any of those things, it's a makeshift, unsanctified altar. So, if the returning exiles are to rebuild the altar, THE altar, they have to tear down the bad altar that's there. Now, how would that sit with the people who built it? Not very well. So, The proper worshiping community made purely of the returned exiles erect the altar, or what they would call the altar, and it creates a division in peoples and creates enemies. For one, when the adversaries of Judah and Benjamin heard that the returned exiles were building a temple to the Lord, the God of Israel. Now remember we mentioned last week that Ezra is not necessarily interested in chronological events. The reason that's important is because The way we would read it at a very simplistic, quick overview reading is that the altar is built, then they start building on the temple, and that's when adversaries show up. I'm willing to bet that the adversaries showed up before they started the foundations of the temple. They showed up as soon as the old altar was destroyed and a new one was being built. So these adversaries are rising from day one of rebuilding temple. The reason that's important is because when we think back to verse 11 and the saying, responsibly praising and giving thanks to the Lord for He is good, for His steadfast love endures forever toward Israel, that is in the midst of opposition. That's not just because things are going swimmingly. They praised God in the midst of opposition when other peoples likely came around. Which happens in chapter four, verse two. They approached Zerubbabel, the heads of the father's houses, and said to them, let us build with you. Who are the people? For that, I would turn back to 2 Kings 17. Who are these adversaries? 2 Kings 17 verse 6. This is just to give us a little bit of historical context. And then we're going to jump down to verses 24 and 28. So 2 Kings 17 verse 6, In the ninth year of Hoshea, the king of Assyria captured Samaria, and he carried the Israelites away to Assyria. and placed them Halah, and on the Habor, the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes. So he takes away the people of the northern kingdom and moves them all over. And notice in verse 6, it's called, the king of Assyria captured Samaria. It doesn't say Israel. The reason for that is because after Jeroboam rebelled, he set up his capital in Shechem, A later king moved the capital to Tirza, and a later king moved the capital to Samaria. So the land of Samaria is all of that land under the direction and guidance and control of its capital, Samaria. That's why it's called Samaria. Hence, we get Samaritans, verses 24 to 28 of chapter 17. And the king of Assyria brought people from Babylon, Kuthah, Evah, Hamath, and Sepharvim and placed them in the cities of Samaria instead of the people of Israel. So here again we can see in the cities of Samaria, those cities underneath Samaria. And they took possession of Samaria and lived in its cities. And at the beginning of their dwelling there, they did not fear the Lord. Therefore the Lord sent lions among them, which killed some of them. So the king of Assyria was told, The nations that you have carried away and placed in the cities of Samaria do not know the law of the God of the land. Therefore he has sent lions among them, and behold, they are killing them because they do not know the law of the God of the land. Then the king of Assyria commanded, send there one of the priests whom you carried away there and let him go and dwell there and teach them the law of the God of the land. So one of the priests whom they had carried away from Samaria came and lived in Bethel and taught them how they should fear Yahweh. As I believe Pastor Andy preached on that text, Long time ago, he pointed out the priests who were taken from the northern kingdom of Israel didn't know how to worship Yahweh all that well. So what happens when you have people who are not Israelites who are taught by a half-Israelite, at least religiously, how to worship Yahweh? You end up with Samaritans. the peoples of the land who don't know how to worship God the way God commanded, who don't worship God according to the law given by Moses. And so when we come to Ezra, chapter 4, verse 1, and Ezra points out the adversaries of Judah and Benjamin. And it sheds a little bit of light on why is it that the worshiping community was found only in the returned exiles? Were there none left? Did Babylon when they hauled away Israel, not leave any people who worshiped Yahweh? How come he doesn't mention them? Why is it always found only in the people who were hauled away and brought back of the exiles? I think it's kind of informative. So the idea is that those people from Samaria have no part in worshiping Yahweh, no part in helping rebuild a temple, even though they had been there for 150 years more than the exiles, maybe a little bit of a stretch in some cases because there were some people who saw the former temple just 50 some years earlier. So we could ask the question, I mean, think of it this way. If you lived in a place for 150 years and someone came and said to you, you know what? You have no right to this. We have it. Would you feel a little put off? Feel wronged by that? Now it's true the exiles have political backing and they use that to their advantage, though that creates problems for them too. So despite the frustrations of chapter 4, verses 3 and 4, when people want to come and build and their hands are being made slack by the peoples of the land, in the midst of that, they praise God for His goodness. And that's right to do. Ezra, on the whole, has a very positive reading of what the returning exiles are doing, though not purely. We could ask a question, though. Why is it that these adversaries wanted to help? Remember, the legal grounds, the way they respond back is that the king of Cyrus, the king of Persia, commanded us to rebuild the temple and altar. He didn't command anybody else. No one else has the political right to rebuild this the way we have the political right. So why do you think that they wanted to help? I really don't know the answer. They seemed friendly. I can remember when I was going through school that a number of different times, especially in my ethics class, the topic would come up. Is it right for Christians to join forces with non-Christians? social political fights. Take abortion, for example. Is it right for Christian groups who want to make an end of abortion fight with non-Christian groups who want to end abortion? Is it right to do that? I really don't know the answer to that one. It's still one that stumps me. But I can say, whether or not Christians join arms with those who are not Christians and want to end something like that, it only looks like we're after the same thing. That's the surface level reading. Say, oh, you want to end abortion? Oh, me too. Let's walk down the yellow brick road together and see if we can't find the man behind the curtain. Really, though, we're after two very different things. See, unbelievers fight for rights. In this case, perhaps the rights of the unborn. Christians sacrifice their rights and the rights of others for the sake of the gospel. That's a different fight. Unbelievers fight for righteousness according to the constitution. Believers fight for righteousness according to the kingdom of heaven. That's a very different fight. What Christians are to make clear in their stance on an issue like abortion is we're not against abortion simply because you're killing something, right? I eat beef. I kill cows. I'm not against taking life. I'm against taking a life made in the image of God. And that's something unbelievers can't touch. The endgame is different. We're trying to change hearts. Other people are trying to fight for rights. And that's a different fight. Though, a very cursory reading of the issue would look like we're after the same thing. So the fights are inherently different for Israel and for the peoples of the land. The fights are inherently different fights. People of the land say, we want to worship your God along with you. The returning exiles say, you have absolutely no part in that. You don't worship our God. You worship our God also, perhaps, but you don't worship our God because our God said you can't worship other gods. You can't worship the gods of the nations that you came from. You can't worship Yahweh the way the Northern Kingdom thought you could worship Yahweh by building extra altars outside of where God chose to put his name. You can't do that. You must worship God the way God told us to worship. And that's what the returning exiles are trying to do, where the peoples of the land were not necessarily interested in doing that. And so, they prove themselves to be enemies of Israel as they take on this bribing game with other individuals. Which moves us to our second concentric circle. We move to the second level. God brings disappointment, and here we need to expand our vision just a little bit in what we see in the text. Remember what God said he would do for Israel? Jeremiah 33, we read it last week, but so worth looking at and keeping in mind as the hope for what God might be doing as he brings people back. Jeremiah 33, verses 7 to 16. We're not gonna make many comments over it, we just want to remember what God told them. Jeremiah 33, 7 and following, I will restore the fortunes of Judah and the fortunes of Israel, and rebuild them as they were at first. I will cleanse them from all the guilt of their sin against me, and I will forgive all the guilt of their sin and rebellion against me. And this city shall be to me a name of joy, a praise and a glory before all the nations of the earth, who shall hear of the good that I do for them. They shall fear and tremble because of all the good and all the prosperity I provide for it. Thus says the Lord in this place in which you say Jerusalem it is a waste without man or beast and the cities of Judah and the streets of Jerusalem that are desolate without man or inhabitant or beast there shall again be heard the voice of mirth and the voice of gladness and the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride and the voices of those who sing as they bring thank offerings to the house of the Lord give thanks to the Lord of hosts for the Lord is good his steadfast love endures forever remember what the people of Israel cried Ezra 3 11 for he is good his steadfast love endures forever they knew this why do you think they said what they said they thought this was happening keep reading for I will restore the fortunes of the land as at the first thus says the Lord of hosts In this place that is waste, without man or beast, and in all the cities, there shall again be inhabitants of shepherds resting their flocks. In the cities of the hill country, in the cities of the Shphela, and in the cities of the Negev, in the land of Benjamin, the places around Jerusalem, and in the cities of Judah, flocks shall again pass under the hand of the one who counts them, says the Lord. Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will fulfill the promise I made to the house of Israel and the house of Judah. In those days, and at that time, I will cause a righteous branch to spring up for David, and he shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. In those days, Judah will be saved and Jerusalem will dwell securely. And by this, and this is the name by which it will be called, the Lord is our righteousness. Who do you think they thought Zerubbabel was? Zerubbabel is the righteous branch. Haggai mentions that. Other prophets mention it. Can you imagine what's going through the mind of the Israelites? This is happening! Though, don't miss what's in the middle. Verses 9, yeah, verse 9, it's a long verse. And this city shall be to me a name of joy and praise and glory before all the nations of the earth, who shall hear of all the good that I do for them. They shall fear and tremble because of the good and all the prosperity that I provide for it. Is that happening? Do the nations fear and tremble? It's not so. In Ezra, the nations were turned away. It's not fear and trembling. Go to Isaiah, another helpful place. Isaiah 14, one and two. Another example where it's a start, but it falls far short of what Israel might have been after. For the Lord will have compassion on Jacob and will again choose Israel and will set them in their own land. And the sojourners will join them and will attach themselves to the house of Jacob. And the peoples will take them and bring them to their place. And the house of Israel will possess them in the Lord's land as male and female slaves. They will take captive those who were their captors and rule over those who oppressed them. Ask yourself a question in verse 2. What does it mean when it says Israel will possess them in the Lord's land? What does it mean to be the Lord's land? We're going to hold that thought for just a brief moment. We'll answer it very shortly. Israel was hoping that the promises would be fulfilled. So they project and they declare the sorts of things that Jeremiah gave. Israel saw herself in continuity with the past. We mentioned this last week. 2 Chronicles chapter 5. Very worth looking at because it sheds light on what's happening now. Why should Israel be so disappointed? 2 Chronicles 5 verses 11 to 14. And when the priests came out of the holy place, for all the priests who were present had consecrated themselves without regard to their divisions, and all the Levitical singers, Asaph, Heman, and Jeduthin, their sons and kinsmen, arrayed in fine linen, with cymbals, harps, and lyres, So far, that's almost exactly what Ezra's trying to copy in Ezra 3. Stood east of the altar with 120 priests who were trumpeters. And it was the duty of the trumpeters and singers to make themselves heard in unison in praise and thanksgiving to the Lord. Same thing they're doing in Ezra 3. And when the song was raised with trumpets and cymbals and other musical instruments in praise to the Lord, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever. Israel copies that nearly verbatim. They don't have the fulfillment. Do they at least have what they used to have? No. Because watch what happens right next. The house of the Lord was filled with a cloud. so that the priests could not stand to minister because of the cloud, for the glory of the Lord filled the house of God. And if you'll notice, this is in the context of the ark being brought into the temple. Ezra is conspicuous in what's not there. No ark, which means no tablets of God's Word, right? Because the tablets were in the ark, Aaron's staff and manna. In the ark, no ark. But because there's no ark, there's also something else that's missing. God's very own presence. God sits enthroned in the cherubim, right? God's unique personal dwelling presence, hand in hand with the ark, missing. Is there reason to weep in the midst of all of the good that God is doing? Is that a disappointment? I also want to bring back that's what it means to be in Yahweh's land. Yahweh owns all things. We know Yahweh owns all things. There's nothing that isn't Yahweh's land, but There was such a thing as God having a unique possession, what he would call an inheritance. Israel is my inheritance. It is mine in a unique way because I am there. So that's what it means to be Yahweh's land. Personal presence in a covenant relationship intended for blessing. Whenever he told Anezeret that God rekindled the fire on the altar as he did with Solomon's temple, We're never told that his glory cloud reappears in a temple. It does not mean that God is not pleased with the rebuilding of the altar and the rebuilding of the temple. God is very pleased with the rebuilding of the altar and the rebuilding of the temple. What it does mean is that God was very intentional in leaving those things out. He's very intentional about bringing that disappointment. And there are actually three disappointments for Israel. Israel is not the head of the nations as had been promised. That was part of the fulfillment. Israel was not the head of the nations. They were still closer to the tail. Israel does not have the ark containing God's word. And Israel does not have the glory cloud or the fire of God's personal unique dwelling presence. All three of those things are missing. As much reason as they have to rejoice, there's reason to weep. It's not here yet. God isn't fulfilling His promise. Certainly not full-filling His promise. He might be filling it, but He's not full-filling it yet. She has a right to praise, Israel does, because God is good and His steadfast love endures forever towards Israel. But why should God bring such disappointment? What is being communicated by doing this? So even though God gives his beloved disappointments, even those disappointments work to magnify his goodness. Fairly briefly here, perhaps God was pleased to bring such a disappointment is because the temple and even Jerusalem itself Became stumbling blocks for Israel. They themselves became Objects worship rather than the God who inhabited the temple and the city of Jerusalem Isaiah 5 13 and 14 therefore my people go into exile for lack of knowledge their honored men go hungry and their multitude is parched with thirst therefore she all has enlarged its appetite and opened its mouth beyond measure and the nobility of Jerusalem and her multitude will go down the revelers and he who exalts in her. What that means is the people have a problem. The problem is that they look to Jerusalem. They look to the temple. They don't look to the God of Jerusalem. They don't look to the God of the temple. That's their problem. Don't make Jerusalem an object of worship. Let Yahweh be your worship. Remember, remember what they said to each other before the exile? Oh, God lives here, he's never gonna let anything happen. We got Jerusalem, what more do we need? You need the God of Jerusalem. What good did Jerusalem do you? Nothing. The temple didn't help you because you didn't pay attention to the God of the temple, to the God of Jerusalem. The temple and Jerusalem itself can become false objects of worship. God's saying, that's not happening. And I'm going to see to it that they have reason to weep. My presence isn't going to be there, and my presence hand-in-hand with the Word is not going to be there. Flip over with me if you would. This is the last text we're actually going to look at. John 14. I just want to show very briefly the tight correlation between the words of God and the presence of God. I'd never noticed this before. But when I was thinking about this and came to John 14 again, it just struck me in such a new way. I can't help but pass it along. John 14, verses 15 to 17. We could read the whole section, it's worth reading, but we're just going to skip. We're going to read verses 15 to 17 and then jump down to 22 to 26. So John... John 14 verse 15, if you love me you will keep my commandments and I will ask the father and he will give you another helper to be with you forever. Even the spirit of truth whom the world cannot receive because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him for he dwells with you and will be in you. Notice the manifested presence of God, Jesus, is going to be gone. Jesus is going to be gone. No manifested presence of God. But we have the presence of God because we have the Word of God. Jump down to verse 22. Judas, not Iscariot, said to him, Lord, how is it that you will manifest yourself to us and not to the world? Jesus answered him, if anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. Whoever does not love me does not keep my words. And the word that you hear is not mine, but the Father who sent me." Notice the connection between the presence of God as the believers experience it, related to the Word of God, related to the world not knowing God's presence is there. Jesus isn't here. No more manifested presence of God. Presence of God is here, found in the Word. Same thing in the Old Covenant. But the difference is, God's word isn't attending the temple in the same way it was the first time. So there's this big change. So in their disappointment, what is Israel to do? Lean on the word that they do have. Psalm 126, four to six. Restore our fortunes, O Lord, like the streams of the Negev. Those who sow in tears shall reap with shouts of joy. He who goes out weeping, bearing the seed for sowing, shall come home with shouts of joy, bringing his sheaves with him. And their rejoicing would come, second and final point, by withholding the unique words of God and his presence, he was preparing his people for something better, Jesus Christ himself. The one aspect of temple worship that they had that pointed most directly to Christ is the thing they had, right? They had the altar, the place where the Lamb is slain. They had the remembrance of sin, the fact that God is their Redeemer. Nothing else comes to them outside of coming to them in Christ. to withhold the presence, to withhold the glory cloud, to withhold the ark, to withhold the fire that burned the sacrifices, is to say, I'm coming to you in a different way. Look for me. I'm coming. My presence will be there. It's not coming with a temple, at least not in that temple. It's coming in the person of my own son. Look for me when I come. And we can remind ourselves that all of the promises of God are wrapped up in Christ. Everything Israel was looking for, every reason they had to weep, gone away with in Christ. That's when the fortunes of Israel and the fortunes of Judah are restored. And that's when our fortunes are restored. So I'm going to close us in prayer, and then we're going to have our closing Zephaniah 317, but I want you to think about that in terms of Christ, because even that, given to Old Covenant Israel, wrapped up in Christ, same for us as it is for them, Jesus is the one who is God dwelling with us. Let's pray. Our Father in heaven, we thank you that you do dwell with your people. We thank you that your Word sits among us, that we can read your Word, that we can memorize your Word, that we can love your Word, and that you say that you come and you make your dwelling with us even now as we do that. Thank you for sending your Spirit. Thank you for sending your Son. We thank you even for the disappointments we face that magnify your glory. Jesus is so much better than the temple of the old covenant. May we have the eyes to see it and savor it. We thank you for your goodness to us. We pray that you would magnify it in our thinking and in our living. We pray it in Christ's name. Amen. If you would stand for Zephaniah 317. We remind each other what we have to look forward to and what we have to look forward to in Christ. So Zephaniah 317. Amen.