And he praised the report. He sure is, Carolyn. He is good. He is good. I got a good report from the doctor. Praise the Lord. And of course he wants to keep an eye on me, no doubt. I go back in three months and do it all over again. But he said all my markers, everything looked good and normal. My white blood count, of course, it's always going to be a little bit elevated. And when they done a CAT scan on me there in Colorado to make sure I didn't have any blood clots from COVID stuff and with that medicine that I was taking, they on that CAT scan said we noticed a lymph node in your chest was enlarged and said just follow up when you get back with your hematologist. And I mentioned to him and he said, that's just part of the CLL. That'll always be there as long as you have CLL, you'll have enlarged lymph nodes in the chest. That's a marker, an indicator. that a lot of times when people's white blood count is elevated, you know, 16, 17,000, they're going to want to do a CAT scan on you to see if you have swollen lymph nodes, and that's going to then direct them toward most likely they've got some kind of leukemia. of some sort. So that's just part of it. But he said everything else, my LDH, my hemoglobin, my platelets, all that was in perfect condition. So all good. So we give him the glory and thanks for that. And he said I was right where he expected me to be, you know, nearly two years out from finishing up chemo. They were just constantly, you know, just keep a close eye on it and stay ahead of anything that, as they would have to whenever they need to. You know, but it was all good. Well, let's jump off in this new book we are in, the book of Ezra. We was in it not too many years ago. Time goes by fast on us, though. I tell you that. If I'm not mistaken, we was in it back in 2018. I could be wrong. I think we was 2013, maybe 2008. We've been in the book a couple different times. Ezra, what you got, Brother Shannon? I got this Bible in 2014. Uh-huh. And I don't have us in there at all. We don't. It might have been, I say 2018, and we may have looked at it during those times. We've looked at it several times. I've got a lot of notes in there. Yeah, we have. We've referred to it. Not a complete. One time, might have been, we was in Haggai. when we was in Haggai we refer to because there's a lot of moving parts that are going on as we look at this historical setting with Ezra. We have already established that Ezra most likely is the one who wrote 1 and 2 Chronicles, that historical record of the kings. Now, something that you wanna pick up on, you may not recognize this right off the bat, but the first couple verses are identical to the last verses in 2 Chronicles 36. If you just turn over one page, you'll see what I'm talking about. One page in your Bible, right? 2 Chronicles 36, look in verse 22. Now, that is, making progression as this historical setting. This is of course after the captivity. Remember they spent how many years in Babylon? Seventy. Seventy years. Verse 22 says, now 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. So he proclaimed it and he penned it. And then it says, thus says Cyrus king of Persia, all the kingdoms of the earth, the Lord God of heaven has given me. And he has commanded me to build him a house at Jerusalem, which is in Judah, who is among you of all his people. May the Lord, his God be with him and let him go up. Now that's what we opened up with in Ezra. He just carried it over. So what we see with Ezra is a continuation of a historical time of when God brought the first group of people out of Babylon and brought them back. That's what chapter two is giving us these register of those who left Babylon, traveled that thousand mile journey, and came back to Jerusalem a desolate, Destroyed place with the intent to rebuild Great challenge in front of them Now one just the journey With that large of a sum of people that that size of a group with all their goods and remember they took the the the silver and the gold and things out of the house of the Lord and brought with them, so That was a great task to do God's work. Cause remember this was God's work. God's the one who did this with Cyrus and he's the one who was sending him back. So this is, this is God's work. Wasn't going to be easy work. Wasn't going to be pleasant. You think about that journey on foot. would happen to bring all your goods, transplant. You've been in a place for 70 years or however you old, because some of them had been there the whole time. Some of them that was in Jerusalem when Nebuchadnezzar took over, brought them into Babylon, was still alive when they went back. because they remembered, we're gonna find out, some of them remembered what the old temple looked like compared to what the foundation of the new temple was gonna look like. And some of them had a difficult time. You'll see that in chapter number three and four when you get into it. So there's a lot of, I said it already, but a lot of moving parts that are going on right now. Lot that has been taking place Daniel is playing into this you got to keep in mind Daniel in chapter 9 of the book of Daniel after he had studied and looked in Jeremiah's prophetic word realized that God said they was going to be there for 70 years and he knew that time was up and So look in Daniel chapter number nine. Let me just give you a few things to go look at that will give you some help with all that's happening right now. Yes. No, it's 4428. 4428. Yeah, I'll show you in a minute. That's in reference to King Cyrus. Yes, that's right. We talked about this before. We're gonna go look at them in a moment. This is some of the things that we're talking about. But Greg, I would change that to 4428. Yeah, 4428. So go to the book of Daniel. Well, glory be, glory be. Y'all let them know we're praying for them. Daniel, if you go to Jeremiah, Lamentations, Ezekiel, you'll come to Daniel. Look in Daniel 9. A lot going on. We can read some of these Older Testament passages. If we're not careful, they're kind of like What does this do? What is this all? I mean, what is this good for me right now? Well, this is what we wanna find out. Why some of these things are really crucial for us to pick up on. Number one, you always remember God is faithful. God is true to his word. Whether men deny it or reject it, God's word will be fulfilled. It's gonna come to pass. The best thing to do is trust Him and lean in on Him. But Daniel 9, look what he says, in the first year of who? Okay, Ezra started off the same way, right? In the first year of King Darius. So we're talking about the same timeframe here. Even though these books are so separated, Just like the books of Malachi is gonna be separated from the book of Ezra, but we're gonna find out that when we get in Malachi next month, Malachi is a response to some of the things they've done in Ezra's day. So Daniel 9.1 says, in the first year Darius, the son of Zechariah, Ahasuerus of the lineage of the Medes who was made king of the realm of the Chaldeans in the first year of his reign, Daniel, I understood by the books the number of the years specified by the word of the Lord through Jeremiah the prophet that he, God, would accomplish 70 years in the desolation of Jerusalem. So Daniel recognized that they were at that timeframe. And Daniel began to pray. Now we're not gonna read all of Daniel nine, but there's a lot in Daniel nine that covers many years and many things ahead. But the point is, is that Daniel trusted the word of God. Where did he find that at? Where did God say that? Go to Jeremiah. Where did God say that at? Where did God tell them 70 years that they would be? Remember Daniel picked this up from Jeremiah. Y'all have a reference in there written down anywhere? Look in Jeremiah 29. Jeremiah 29. Jeremiah 29, remember this was sent, if you look in verse one of Jeremiah 29, now these are the words of the letter. Remember we've talked about that when we was in Jeremiah, that it wasn't the actual letter that Jeremiah sent, but the words of the letter. Just like we don't have the actual letters in our Bible today, that Jeremiah wrote, or Paul wrote to Galatia, or Paul wrote to Titus, or Peter wrote to those in the dispersion, but we have the words of Jeremiah. We have the words of Peter and Paul. God has preserved this word for us, and we can trust it. And all God's people said? We have the words of the letter. You go down, he tells them what's gonna happen, and then he says, in verse number 10, but thus says the Lord, after 70 years are complete at Babylon, I will visit you and perform my good word towards you and cause you to return to this place. For I know the thoughts, verse 11, which most people could tell us this verse. For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope. Now this is all about what we're reading in Ezra right now. This is God fulfilling this promise. Verse 12. Then you will call upon me and go and pray to me and I will listen to you. And verse 13, you will seek me and find me when you search for me with what? All your heart. Now we're gonna see how this plays in in a moment. So now we looking at what? Jeremiah 29. We've already found that Daniel nine was in the first year King Darius and he knew these things were about to take place because he had Jeremiah's message and the word that he wrote that we call Jeremiah 29. He knew 70 years. So he calculated, wait, 70 years is up. It's the first year of the reign of King Darius. And that's how We then pick up at the close of what? Chronicles and in the opening of the book of Ezra. Now here's the thing, Ezra is not in Jerusalem at this time. Ezra won't leave to go to Jerusalem until we get in about chapter seven. This is the first group of people that left from Babylon and went back to Jerusalem. There's gonna be another group that's gonna come later. Ezra is telling us the history. He's telling us the story of God recovering his people and bringing them back. Now, something else that is needed in this is God says he will always preserve his people. You don't have to question God about the Jew. The Jew will always be around. They will not be annihilated. They cannot be and will not be. God already told us in the book of Jeremiah, if y'all don't remember this, remember what he said. If it was possible that you could take away day and night, the seasons and the months of the year, he would relent on his covenant to his people. God is faithful to his word. And his people done what? Been taken out of Egypt, brought into a land. Now they've been taken out of Jerusalem and brought to Babylon and God brought them back. No people on the planet of the earth has been able to be held together after being dispersed from their homeland and brought back to it no more than one time. They've done it three different times. It has happened already. And the third time happened during the Roman Empire when they destroyed Jerusalem and they dispersed all the people around the world. And what has God been doing since then? God's been bringing what? The Jew back to Israel. Why? Because it's setting up the final stages of time. of what God's gonna do. Three different times they've been dispersed. Three different times they've been brought back. And they have maintained their nation and their people through that time and no other nation in the world, in the history has ever recovered after being totally dispersed from the land and brought back to it that many times. Why? Because God's true to his word. Now is God doing something in the Jew right now compared to what he's doing with the Gentiles? No, God's working through the Gentiles right now. We are in the times of the Gentiles. And that was part of God's, what, plan as well. And we talked about that in John 12. They wouldn't and they couldn't and they shouldn't so that we could and we would and should believe on the Lord Jesus. This is all part of the wisdom of God. So some of the moving parts that we're looking at is that not only did Jeremiah talk about these things, but Isaiah, 150 years before they ever took place, proclaimed a word about what was coming as well. And God has been exactly true to everything he said about this timeframe, about Darius and about Cyrus and about these different ones. We see it all, what, coming to pass. We see God bringing this about. So look over in Isaiah 44. Look in Isaiah 44. Go over there for a moment. I'm just gonna start reading. It's a little bit long, but y'all just bear with me for a moment, because it all kind of comes together in these thoughts when we look at the whole chapter. In chapter 40, God told Isaiah to start comforting His people. So this word that we're about to read is part of that idea to be a comfort to the people of Israel. And he says in verse number one, when y'all read this, I want you to, when you read along with me and you look at it, if you got any questions, just ask. And because some of the translations, of course, that you might have may read just a touch different, but I want you to just think about this for a moment. It says, yet here now, old Jacob, my servant, and Israel, whom I have chosen. That goes along with the fact that God's been faithful to them. He's going to keep them. And at the end of time, when the times of the Gentiles are up, God's going to turn back toward His chosen people, Israel. And the Bible says in Romans, all of them will be saved then. That's when the Antichrist comes on the scene. That's when all the world armies come against the things of God and the people of God and God preserves them and keeps them. And that's when the Messiah is gonna return to this earth. God is true to his word and everything we've seen in history thus far has proven that. Everything we've seen with Babylon, everything we've seen with Cyrus and Darius, everything we've seen, God has been true to what he said was gonna happen to the detail every single time. Now watch. Verse two, thus says the Lord who made you and formed you from the womb, who will also, what? What does he do? He helps us. Fear not, O Jacob, my servant, and you just ruin whom I have chosen. Verse three, for I will pour water on him who is thirsty and floods on the dry ground. I will pour my spirit on your descendants and my blessings on your offspring. They will spring up among the grass like willows by the watercourses. One will say, I am the Lord's, and another will call himself by the name of Jacob, and another will write with his hand, the Lord's, and name himself by the name of Israel. They're gonna be proud of it. Thus says the Lord, the King of Israel, and his Redeemer, the Lord of hosts. I am the first and the last, besides me there is what? No God, he's the alpha and the omega, the first and the last. He's gonna have the last word over it all. Praise God, amen. Verse seven, and who can proclaim as I do? Then let him, whoever they think they are, declare it and set it in order for me. Since I, God, appointed the ancient people and the things that are currently, and are coming and shall come. Now who appoints all this? God. So everything you're gonna be reading in Ezra has all been appointed by God. Everything we read through Acts is what? Appointed by God. Everything we've read in the book of Revelation is appointed by God. The days we live in are appointed by God. Let them show these to them. Do not fear nor be afraid. Have I not told you from that time and declared it? You are my witnesses. Is there a God besides me? Indeed, there is no other rock. I do not know of one. And I wanna tell you, God knows everything, don't he? Verse nine. Those who make an image of all them are what? Vanity, useless, and their precious things shall not profit. They are their own witnesses. They neither see nor know that they may be ashamed. Who would form a God or mold an image that profits him nothing? The rest of the world does this. This is how they function and live. And he's telling his people, you don't have to be afraid of them. You don't have to fear them. Surely all his companions would be ashamed and the workmen, they are mere what? They're just mere men, that's all they are. Let all them, let them all be gathered together and let them stand up, yet they shall fear, they shall all be ashamed together. If the entire world stood up to fight against God and his people, they're gonna be ashamed. Let them stand up, he said. They can't, he can't be defeated, won't be defeated. You have nothing to fear, amen? Verse 12, the blacksmith with his tongs works one in the coals, he fashions it with hammers and works it out with strength of his arms. Even so, he, the blacksmith, is what? He's weak, he gets hungry. And his strength fails, he drinks no water and he what? So the blacksmith who fashions these images and these idols is frail and weak. He can't sustain himself. Verse 13, the craftsman, that is who designs it, stretches out his rule, he marks it out with chalk, he fashions it with a plane, he marks it out with a compass and makes it like the figure of a man according to the beauty of a man that it may remain in the house. He cuts down cedars, for himself and takes the cypress and the oak. He secures it for himself among the trees of the forest. He plants a pine and the rain nourishes it. Then it shall be for a man to burn. So he makes an idol out of one thing and then he uses the rest of that wood to burn something with. What he's saying is none of that makes sense, does it? Then it shall be for a man to burn for what For he will take some of it and warm himself. Yes, he kindles it and bakes bread on it. Indeed, he makes a God and worships it. He makes it a carved image and he falls down to it. He burns half of it in the fire with his half. He eats meat, he roasts the roast and he is satisfied. He even warms himself and he says, ah, I am warm, I have seen the fire. And the rest of it, he makes into a God. That is out of his imagination. He fashions it out of his imagination. By his own imagination, he created a God. He carved an image, he falls down before it and worships it, prays to it and says, deliver me for you are my God. And verse 18 says, these people that do this and live this away, they do not know nor understand. For he, God, has shut their eyes so that they cannot, what? So who's behind? Who's got them in a position where they can't even see what they're doing and understand what they're doing? God has done this. Remember what Jeremiah 16, 19, we looked at it Sunday night. God says that when a man comes to him, when the Gentiles come to him, they're gonna know he's the Lord, and they're gonna know everything they've been doing was once worthless, useless, and based on lies. Why? Because God reveals truth to him. But if God doesn't reveal the truth, what a man sees, he can't even understand what he's doing. because he's been blinded. Verse 18, for he has shut their eyes so that they cannot see, and their hearts so that they cannot understand. And here's the thing, and no one considers in his heart, nor is there knowledge, nor understanding to say, I have burned half of it in the fire. Yes, I have baked bread on its coals. I have roasted meat and eaten it. And shall I make the rest of it an abomination? Shall I fall down before the block of wood? He feeds on ashes, a deceived heart has turned him aside and he cannot deliver his soul, nor say is there not a lie in my right hand. He can't see it. You've ever asked the question, why do people do what they do? I mean, why they keep doing what they're doing? God tells us here that the reason they do it because they don't have the capacity to consider and understand why they're doing it because their understanding has been darkened that they don't even consider how foolish it is the way that they're living. See, but when God exposes himself to us, he manifests himself to us, we then can see that all that is worthless. All that is a lie. All that is vanity and empty, and we throw ourself upon the Lord. But who's gotta do this in our life? God's gotta be the one who opens this up. So let's go a little bit further. Verse 21. Remember these old Jacob and Israel for you are my servant, not their servant. You don't have to worry about them and what they're doing. I'm the one who formed you and you are my servant. God's not weak, is he? His arm hadn't been shortened, has it? He don't eat nor sleep nor slumber at all. Oh Israel, you will not be forgotten by me. I, God says, has blotted out like a thick cloud your transgressions and all God's people said. And like a cloud your sins return to me for I have what? redeemed you. Now all this is going to play into Ezra and them and those groups of people going back to what God has established. God is saying, you're my witnesses. I've chosen you, and I haven't forgotten you. I made a promise to you, and I'm fulfilling my promise to you. Verse 23, sing, O heavens, for the Lord has done it. Shout, you lower parts of the earth. Break forth into singing, O you mountains. O forest and every tree in it, for the Lord has redeemed Jacob and glorified himself in Israel. Verse 24, thus says the Lord your Redeemer, and He who formed you from the womb. I am the Lord who makes all things, who stretches out the heavens all alone, who spreads abroad the earth by myself, who frustrates the signs of the Babylers and drives diviners mad, who turns wise men backward and make their knowledge foolishness. Now watch verse 26. who confirms the word of his servant. Let's just take Jeremiah for an example. Did God confirm his word? Yes. And perform the counsel of his messengers, who says to Jerusalem, you shall be inhabited. To the cities of Judah you shall be built, and I will raise up her waste places. Who says to the deep, be dry, and I will dry up your rivers. Who says to who? Cyrus. Now this is 150 years before Cyrus was ever born, Keith. Who says to Cyrus, he is my shepherd. and he, Cyrus, shall perform all my pleasure. Say unto Jerusalem, what? You shall be, and to the temple, your foundation shall be laid. You see, God confirmed his word to Cyrus. And you know, that's exactly what Cyrus said when you read Ezra one. That's what he said, for the Lord has given me all the earth. and He has commanded that I rebuild His temple. And everybody that belongs to Jehovah God, you are permitted to go back and build this. You know where Cyrus gets this from? Right here. Right here. Not only right here, but in the book of Jeremiah 27. Now hold your spot there, go back to Jeremiah 27, and look in about verse number, it's one book over, Jeremiah 27. Look in about verse number five. These are the very things that the king Cyrus said. This is what Jeremiah proclaimed to the people in Jerusalem in his day, but they didn't heed his word. But not one word Jeremiah spoke fell to the ground. It came to pass. Verse five says, God says, I have made the earth and man and the beast that are on the ground by my great power and by my outstretched arm and have given it to whomever seemed proper to me. And that's exactly what King Cyrus understood. that God is the sovereign God of this world. And God gives this earth to whomever he has chosen. And God has given me the earth now. And he has commanded me to go build his temple. And that's why he was behind it. He knew who gave it to him. Now, go back to Isaiah 45. Now, y'all need to be writing down little notes, Jeremiah 27 five, Jeremiah 29, Daniel nine, all these little things. Write them down by these passages that we're reading, because they all fit together. Remember, there's a lot of moving parts that are going on right now. Look in chapter 45 of Isaiah. Thus says the Lord to his what? Now, anointed means one chosen for a purpose. Christ is the anointed one, the Messiah. Cyrus is anointed. Remember, you have to be anointed by God to be approved by God, so that what you do is accepted by God, and what you do is affirmed by him. Thus says the Lord to his anointed. Now, who is he gonna describe as his anointed? Cyrus. Now you think, well, Cyrus was a pagan king. Well, Abraham was a pagan too. Abraham was a pagan Gentile that God said, Abraham, come follow me, I'm gonna give you something. Now he's called out Cyrus and said, come follow me, I'm gonna give you something. But this was 150 years before the man was even born. And he called him his anointed and he called him by name, gave him his name. And remember, all this was to be fulfilled by what God spoke by the prophets, right? This wasn't God looking into the future and says, well Cyrus, his mama's gonna name him Cyrus. No, Cyrus was named Cyrus because God said his name would be Cyrus, and his mama didn't have no choice in the matter but to name him Cyrus, are you with me? He is the working of God. To Cyrus, whose right hand, God says, I have what? I holdeth, I held, I strengthened. Why did I strengthen? Why did I hold his hand? To subdue or to conquer nations before him. And to loose the armor of kings. You know what kings did when they come into Cyrus' presence because of the strength of the Lord upon him? They took their belts off that their swords were on and they took their breastplates off and they bowed the knee before the king. Why? Because of the hand of the Lord was upon him to subdue nations and loosen the armory of the kings. They couldn't help but lower their belts and drop their weapons and bow their knee to this king. Why? Who was on him? God had given him the earth. It was his. To subdue nations before him and to loose the armor of the kings, to open before him the double doors. That is, he opened up the double doors, meaning he opened the gates wide for him to come in. so that the gates will not be shut. And you know what the scriptures teach us, when God opens, no man can shut, and when he shuts, no man. So who's behind all this? This is a God thing. Verse two, I will go before you, Cyrus, and make the crooked places straight, and I will break in pieces the gates of bronze. I will cut the bars of iron. Cyrus, I will give you the treasuries of darkness." That which has been, oh wait, that people didn't even know some of these kingdoms had. God says, I'm putting it all into your hand. And hidden riches of secret places. For what reason though? Why does God do this? that you may know that I, the Lord, who call you by your name, am the God of Israel. Now, you hear that there. And when God reveals himself to us so that we could know who he is, amen? And then he says this, I'm doing it, not only that you will know me, but I'm doing it for Jacob, my servant's sake. and Israel my elect. I have even called you by your name. I have named you though you have not known me." Just God being sovereign. I am the Lord, and there is no other. There is no gods besides me. I will gird you, Cyrus, though you have not known me, that they may know from the rising of the sun till it's setting that there is none besides me. Man. You see, and that's the whole, when you read that and I read that, you know, everything that's telling me when God does a work in our life, it's for these very same purposes here, that from the rising of the sun, everywhere we go and everybody we go around is so that we could exalt the Lord, so that we could build up the brethren. Why does God gives us gifts of the Spirit? So that we could edify and build up the brethren. It's so that it's not about us. It's so that what? He's building something. He's doing something. He's building his kingdom. And here's a man who wasn't even born yet. And he says, I've already named you. You didn't know who I was. You didn't know nothing about me until God made himself known to him. And you see Cyrus then reads these revelations. He reads this. He knows because of what God's doing and stirring within him. And then now let's go back and look at Ezra one again. Come on. You can't get away from it, can you? I, I, I. You see all those folks that bark at God can't do what he wants to do, ain't just never read their Bible. When you read that, you know what that does? That just gives me more and more confidence in him that what's going on right now around the world, whether it be Putin or Biden or Korea or China or whoever it is, who's still in control of everything that's going on in this world. Who gives America the power that America's had? Who's given Russia and built up their might? Who's done all this? God does this. If we kept reading in Isaiah 45, you would see that God says, I create darkness and I create light. I create life and calamity and destruction. I, I, I. So when you look in Ezra chapter number one, if you go back to it, we're gonna see why Cyrus was able to say what he said. Verse one of chapter one, now 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 did what? Ah, the Lord stirred up the spirit of Cyrus, king of Persia, so that he made a proclamation throughout all the kingdom and also penned it, put it in writing, and this is what he says. Thus says Cyrus, king of Persia, all the kingdoms of the earth, the Lord God of heaven has what? Given me. How did he know that? Well, one, God stirred up in his spirit, God revealed himself to him, and everything God proclaimed, he confirmed it to him in the book of Isaiah and in the prophecies of Jeremiah, so the man could see that, hey, God gives kingdoms to whomever he chooses and he's given it to me. But he didn't give it to me so that I can harm you or hurt you, he gave it to me so that I could exalt him. and magnify him and build up his kingdom. And look what happens. He says, he's given it to me and he has commanded me to build him a house at Jerusalem, which is in Judah. Who is among you? God 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 build the house of God, the Lord God of Israel. He is God, which is in Jerusalem. And whoever is left in any place where he dwells, Let the men of his place help him with silver and gold, with goods and livestock, besides the freewill offerings for the house of God, which is in Jerusalem. So then we see what does God do? Then God then stirs in the spirit of the people. And they are now willing to make that thousand mile journey back to Jerusalem with all these goods to go to a place that's been left in ruins and destroyed, and they're gonna have to build it from the ground up. When they've already established their homes, their families, their livelihood, and I imagine at that point in time, they were all living pretty comfortable and safe lives there in Babylon, just blending, because God told them, what? Go ahead and marry, go ahead and have children, go ahead and build your house, go to work, because you're gonna be here for 70 years. But when those 70 years was up, it was time for them to pick up and head on out and go do this great work. Brother Shannon, some of them were older than you. They'd been there 70 years. And some of them remembered. You get into chapter three and four, we're gonna see that many of them remembered what the temple looked like when it still stood before Nebuchadnezzar destroyed it. And then you're gonna have another younger group that's gonna look at it And they're gonna be shouting over how majestic it's gonna be, but the older group looks back and says how small it is. It ain't like what it used to be. And they're gonna hold on to the past rather than celebrate the present and what God is still doing. And then when you look over in Zechariah and in the book of Haggai, because all this is going on with them too, it's a timeframe in there, there's gonna come a point when they do, get this foundation laid that God's gonna tell them don't despise the day of small things. Don't take lightly this day. I'm at work in this. It ain't what it was, but it's something, and I'm doing something in it, and I'm doing something with you. So don't get caught up in looking backwards. Get caught up in what I'm bringing to you, what I'm still yet to do. So all these things. So Haggai is a book that's gonna play in because we're gonna find out that look, over the next couple days and you're reading, and when we gather back on this weekend where God would have us, we're gonna find out that the people, as long as they did their own thing, the people around them didn't bother them. But soon as they laid the foundation of that temple and started building on what they were sent for, the enemies around them started trying to stop them and hinder them. But as long as they did their own thing, built their own kingdoms, their own house and all, nobody bothered them until they started building what God sent them there for. Then they had conflict. They get to a point where they stop building. And that's where Haggai would come in about 15 years later. Haggai's a prophet that says, look, take a look at your ways. Consider how you've been living. God sent you here and gave you all the resources to build this house. But because you let people frustrate God's plan in your life, you started focusing in on yourself. And you took those resources and you built your own houses and your own places, but you let my house lie in ruins. But God says, I've been showing you the whole time things have been out of order. But then a revival broke out. They all got right with God and they started building that temple. Again, they got it back again and they built it up. So all this, so you're looking at Daniel, Jeremiah, Isaiah, Haggai, Zechariah, Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther. All these are gonna be woven together what was going on in the Persian Empire and what was happening with God's people all this while. So there's a lot of moving parts. But boy, it's good stuff. You don't want to miss any of it. And when you go back and consider what Isaiah said about it, what Jeremiah prophesied about it, and you see in it now all come to pass exactly how God said it, that should build faith in us to know that, hey, we can take God at his word. Man, if he was true as he was with them, he's just as true with us today. Remember what we just read in Titus? In Titus, Paul said, I go out with hope because God promised, and if God promised, He can't lie and his word will come to pass of us doing what he's called us to do. So it's all, it's so good, all of it's so good. So I pray you enjoy it as you're going through it. Chapter two is gonna be a record for you, a record for the Hebrew of all who came back. They have a registry of it just like how we would keep a chronicle registry of babies being born. You know, Miss Barber and them baby was born tonight, so on what, February the 2nd at six something in the evening, that's gonna be chronicled, and they get a birth certificate. Well, all that is being chronicled as well, and that's why he gives us that. And then he breaks it down, what, with the Levites, and the priests, and the singers, and the porters, and as Brother Shannon asked about that one group of people and Solomon's servants, they were ones who took care of the facilities in the temple. They were the servants who took care of that. They still fell within the Levites, but they were at a level that they just cleaned up and made sure everything was in working order. They wasn't singers, they wasn't the porters, they wasn't the priest, and they wasn't those things, but they all had a place. They all had a part. Remember those sons of Korah, they said, we'd rather be a doorkeeper in the house of the Lord than anywhere else, amen? Because wanting to get out of place is only gonna get you in trouble before the Lord, amen? So all this is good. Ezra, he's a priest. He's gonna show up on the scene about chapter seven. Once we get there, we'll see the spirit of Ezra, but he's gonna make a mistake. He's gonna make a mistake. You get into chapter nine and chapter 10, he gets behind and he lets the people convince him it would be the right thing to do to divorce their wives and send their children on. He made a mistake in that. That's where Malachi's gonna come in and say, hey, you priest, I'm upset with you. Them people came to you for an answer and you gave them the wrong word and you permitted them to do something that I never permit. When you piece it all together, it becomes light. It's clear to us. So we'll look at all that. So it's good. It's good. It's a good word to read. Amen? Amen. Father, we thank you tonight. We bless you. We ask you to help us with these things. Teach us more than anything to know you. And what we read tonight in 44 and 45 of the book of Isaiah and your faithfulness to proclaim through Jeremiah and see your servant Daniel recognizing even in his day while the ink was still wet on the pages, he knew it was from you. Because your people can recognize you and your word when you proclaim it. So Lord, we pray that we see it and we trust you and walk in what you've given us today. You're building something today. You're building the kingdom, the body of Christ. And I want to be part of that work. In Jesus' name, amen. Love y'all. Y'all have a good night. Anybody have anything before we go?