In the unfolding story of the nation of Israel, God proves his own sovereignty over all the nations of the world. He works out his purposes for his chosen people and there is in them a predetermined precision. And so, in the year 538 BC, The covenant-keeping God of Abram, Isaac, and Jacob stirred up the heart of Cyrus, the king of Persia, to make a proclamation through all of his realm permitting Jews to return to their homeland and instructing them to rebuild the temple of their God. He commanded their neighbors to help them with gifts of gold and silver and livestock And so a remnant of Jewish exiles loaded with Persian wealth trekked almost 1,500 kilometers home to Jerusalem and the towns of Judah in circumstances that are reminiscent of the great exodus from Egypt. And that is where we pause first, the exodus revisited And there are certain similarities between this procession of people from Babylon to Jerusalem and that procession from Egypt to the Promised Land. But there are also very real differences. Back then, 600,000 men in addition to women and children, walked that road from Egypt to the Promised Land. Now there are fewer than 50,000 men. Still, that would have been quite a sight, watching them trek from Babylon, 1500 kilometers to Jerusalem, passing through so many territories and regions of the Babylonian Empire until at last they reached their final destination. There was another difference between these two treks in the first, The men and women who labored under the load of wealth that they had received from the Egyptians were set free from slavery. They were driven out of the land of Egypt. They weren't wanted and they were set free to worship their God. Now, It is a decree of a foreign overlord that permits them to return to their homeland and they still are under the authority of that foreign king. They haven't been driven out of the land so much as invited to go and instructed to rebuild their homes and the temple of their God. When that first exodus took place, 12 tribes left Egypt and were formed by their God into a new nation, a nation that would grow in wealth. and influence and would find its climax under the reigns of David and Solomon when the wealth of the world was brought to Jerusalem and its wisdom was renowned throughout the world. Now, but a fragment of a remnant people embark upon this journey from Babylon to Jerusalem. But the biggest difference of all is that then, back in the days of Moses, The people were travelling to take possession of a promised inheritance, a land flowing with milk and honey that had been promised to their fathers Abraham, Isaac and Jacob 400 years or more earlier and which now was being given into their hands, cities that they hadn't built. vineyards that they hadn't planted, flocks that they hadn't raised, were all to be delivered into their hands to be their possession in a country that were to be their own home. Now, This much smaller group of people being sent back by a foreign king to build a temple are returning to ruins, the ruins of a land that they themselves had forfeit because of their sin and rebellion against God. Well, whether it's the first Exodus or whether it's this restoration from Babylon, we see in both the grace of God. He is active in faithfulness to his covenant. Such happy hopes were in the hearts of the people who followed Moses out of slavery. It wasn't to last, of course, because They were discovered to be a rebellious and a stiff-necked people who at the slightest approach of danger or difficulty longed to be back in the land of their slavery, imagined that they were better off there. But God had kept his promise to Abraham and he was delivering them into the land of their inheritance, not for anything that they had done, not because they deserved it in the least, but he is the covenant faithful God. And so it is now in these chapters of Ezra as the people, the remnant make their way back to Judah and to Jerusalem. They know that this isn't theirs by right. They had relinquished their right to it when they had bowed down to the Baals and the Ashtoreth. They had relinquished their right to it when they had worshipped the idols and built the high places. They had relinquished their right to it when they had forsaken the God of Abram, Isaac, and Jacob. And he, it would seem, had forsaken them, but not utterly, not completely. For the grace of God is extended to them also in his faithfulness to his covenant. It was because of his promise to Abraham, it was because of his love for David that they now find themselves approaching the holy city and see the ruined walls of the temple and of the city that had held so much promise. Here in the exodus We come face to face with the reality of our own sin and the reality of God's goodness. Here in the restoration we come face to face with the reality of our own sin. and of God's covenant faithfulness. For these stories point us outside of ourselves, for any good, for any hope, they point us to the power of a God who is full of compassion and mercy towards sinners. There is hope in no other, there is no other name that we can put our confidence in, than the name of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of David, the God who sent David's greater son to provide salvation, restoration to his people, to restore them to favor with God, and to give them a promised inheritance among the people of God. And here are the people. Let us observe them. They are listed for us under these unpronounceable names, for the most part at least. I take courage from the fact that if they were here now and they tried to pronounce my name, they'd probably get it wrong and I would show them mercy and forgiveness. So I hope that they will too. Well, here are all these names. You will, I think, have noticed that these aren't all names of families. that some of them are names of places after all we have we're told the sons of Bethlehem and Bethlehem isn't a person Bethlehem we know is a place it is the place of Jesus's own birth isn't it so we're very familiar with that and some of these other places as well Rama and Geba They're places rather than persons. The sons of Jericho. Well, Jericho's a place, not a person. And so these people who are returning, they find their identity sometimes in their family and sometimes in the place of their inheritance. These are real people. that belong to real places, that they have real connections to the land through their families or through their inheritance. And the Spirit of God who had stirred in the heart of Cyrus to decree their return to the land, as we saw last time, has stirred in their hearts to desire to return to the land. They are only a small portion of the people of Israel who live in the Empire of Babylon. They're only a small portion of those who have been taken into captivity. In fact there will be another two waves as it were of people who will return from Babylon to Jerusalem and Judah. Here they are returning under the leadership predominantly of Zerubbabel, the prince of Judah, who has claim in the lineage of David to the throne. A little later on in the book we will find that Ezra, whose name is the title of this book, will bring another group of people back to Jerusalem. And then in the next book, the book of Nehemiah, Nehemiah himself will bring a third wave of people back to the land. But here are these who have been first stirred by the Spirit of God to desire to return to the land of their fathers, to rebuild the temple in obedience to the instruction of Cyrus, king of Persia. They are a people who in essence represent all Israel. We have at the very end of the chapter the fact that they are, that all the rest of Israel it says, literally in the Hebrew it says, all Israel in their towns. These are the people who have come back and they are all Israel. and they are in their towns. Now they're only one particular tribe, predominantly they're of the tribe of Judah, though as we see there are Levites among them, and priests who would have been of the tribe of Levi, and there are almost certainly a smattering of people who belong to other tribes also. Nevertheless these who return represent all Israel. Later on in the book in chapter 8 and in verse 35 we read after the after the temple has been built and a new group of Levites have come with Ezra to minister in the temple that we're told at that time Those who had come from captivity, the returned exiles, offered burnt offerings to the God of Israel, twelve bulls for all Israel. 96 rams, 77 lambs, and as a sin offering 12 male goats. All this was a burnt offering to the Lord. Notice that 12 bulls for all Israel. How many tribes were there in Israel? There were 12 tribes in Israel, one bull for each tribe. So even here as they are offering sacrifices to God, they're offering sacrifices on behalf of all Israel. they are representing all Israel. It is almost a foreshadowing of the reality that becomes clear in the New Testament that not all who are descended of Abraham are Israel. that Israel is made up of those who, to use the language of Ezra chapter 1, have had their spirits stirred by God. God has worked in them. God has turned them to desire him, to desire to worship him, and to serve him. And so we find that all of these people who are returning in this first band of of restored captives are coming with the purpose of serving God. Some have very deliberate and specific roles. There are the priests, they of course offer the sacrifices on behalf of the people, they maintain the rituals of Israel. There are the Levites. They were assistants to the priests. Initially, in the days of Moses, their main responsibility was when it came time to move from one camp to another. And they had responsibility for the tabernacle and its furniture and all of its articles. They had to carry them and transport them and set them up and then break camp again. to move on to the next place. As time went by they had other responsibilities of assisting the priests around the temple but also throughout all of Israel to teach the people and to tell them the ways of the Lord. Then we have some other people perhaps a little bit of a puzzle, the temple servants. Well these were people who weren't Levites but they were drafted in from other tribes of Israel and even there would be some among them who were Gentiles who were committed to Israel and who were assistants, as it were, to the Levites and did some of the more menial tasks that the Levites were responsible for. When we think of all the sacrifices that had to be made and the water that had to be carried and brought to fill up the basins and so on, perhaps these were some of the tasks that the temple servants were involved in. And then there are the sons of Solomon's servants, another group of servants. And there were the gatekeepers. All of these are bundled together in a total in verse 58. The temple servants and the sons of Solomon's servants were 300. and 92. Again, these would have been people who would have been captives during Solomon's reign, whose families stayed in Israel and who became committed to the worship of God. And these families then, they too have had their spirits stirred within them. They don't belong physically to Israel, but they belong spiritually to Israel. There are people who do belong or claim that they belong, believe that they belong physically to Israel, but cannot prove that fact. There are those from the general people and even those who claim to be of the priestly family, the line of Aaron, but somehow their genealogy has been lost and they are unable to prove that they belong to the priesthood. in view of what had happened to Aaron's sons who offered strange fire upon the altar in the tabernacle and were killed, the reality of the holiness of God and his justice caused the governor to say to them, you must not eat of the holy food. We don't know for sure that you belong to the priestly family. That doesn't mean that they can't take part in the sacrifices, they can't take part in the ceremonies and the rituals. Like all the others who have returned, they can take part in those things but they cannot be considered priests. until their lineage can be proven and so the governor told them that they weren't to partake of the most holy food until there should be a priest to consult Urim and Thumim. And there's debate now as to Well, was the way that the Urim and Thummim consulted, had that been lost? Were the current generation of priests ignorant of the appropriate method? Or was it that the Urim and Thummim themselves, part of the high priestly garments, had been lost? And so until God, in his providence, restored these things, there was no way of finding out for sure whether these people were priests. So there are all sorts of people in whom the Spirit of God has stood, people who can prove their genealogy and that they belong to the family of Aaron or the tribe of Levi or one of the other tribes of Israel, that they belong to a particular family or a particular location. and those who can't prove those things, but whose hearts are committed to the Lord, who are willing to take this dangerous journey, and who are ready to devote their lives and their resources to rebuilding the temple in Jerusalem. So all of this chapter, all of these various people are devoted to the service of God in one way or another. This is why they have returned to the land of their fathers, to the city of Jerusalem. And in the next chapter we will see the beginnings of the rebuilding of the temple. But this again echoes the Exodus, doesn't it? What was Pharaoh told? about the people of Israel when he was told to let them go, let them go that they might serve me. They were God's people, they were made to serve him. And these people who were restored from the captivity in Babylon, their focus is to serve God. and the people of the New Covenant, the people of the redemption won by Jesus Christ, they too have as their focus the service of God. When Jesus was talking to the Samaritan woman by the well as he traversed from Galilee to Jerusalem, and he stopped there for a rest and for refreshment, he spoke to her and recorded for us in John chapter 4 and verse 23 and said, the hour is coming and now is here when true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship Him. When God stirs in people's hearts, when God turns them from this world and from rebellion against Him, to desire Him and seek reconciliation with Him, God is seeking worshippers, God is seeking servants, God is seeking people who will devote themselves to Him. And the redeemed people of God who have been purchased by the blood of Christ are a people who have been purchased to worship Him and to serve Him. And that, if we claim to be Christians today, ought to be the focus of our lives. We don't all serve Him in the same way. I was going to say, we're not all priests. But those of you who know your New Testaments will say, ah, but we are all priests. Well, if we're all priests, what are we to do? We're to serve God. That's what the priests do. But we serve God in different ways. We are each called to a different role, a different place, a different aspect of the great commission that Jesus Christ gave to his church. We're not all preachers, we're not all teachers, we're not all elders, we're not all deacons, but we are all servants of God. We are all, we've all been sought by God and found by God to worship him. to serve Him, every day of our lives, in every aspect of our lives, whether we eat or drink or whatever we do, we are to do it to the glory of God, with a conscious desire that in it all we are acknowledging Him, that in it all we are seeking His honour. And so here are the people, all sorts of people, all sorts of backgrounds, but all committed to the Lord, whether Israelite born or foreigner drafted in, they are now serving the Lord. And they express their hope in God. the end of this chapter we have the declaration that some of the heads of families when they came to the house of the Lord, that is in Jerusalem, made free will offerings for the house of God to erect it on its site according to their ability they gave to the treasury of the work. And here they are then, you can picture them, they're coming They're coming down the Jordan Valley, and they see on the right-hand side, elevated on the side of the valley, the city of Jerusalem. And they make their way up to the city, and as they approach the city, they see the rubble of the walls of that city that had been destroyed in the days of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon. and then they look for the highest point in that city, the mount, and there on the mount, the temple, but there is no temple, that too has been destroyed, that too is in ruins, there is nothing recognisable left of the glorious temple that Solomon had built, But here they come. They come to that temple place that resembled more the threshing floor than it had once been before it was a temple place. And there they brought their gifts. They came to the house of the Lord. It had no walls. It had no roof. It had none of the symbols of sacrifice. and solemnity. But there it was, the house of the Lord, and it was worthy of their honour and their devotion. And they came to the house of the Lord, we're told, and made freewill offerings. They gave of their wealth they had been enriched by the gifts of their neighbours as they left. Babylon for Jerusalem. They had many of them become quite wealthy in trade while they were in Babylon and they brought of their wealth as they were able and they gave to the building of the house of the Lord. They gave freely, they gave according to their ability, they gave in hope of seeing the house built. And you know as I read those things you could almost have been reading 1 Corinthians and Paul's instructions for how we are to give. We are to give generously but not under compulsion, we are to give freely, we are to give according to our ability. And we're giving for the erection of the House of God. We're giving that a spiritual temple might be constructed of living stones. These are the people in whom the Spirit of God stirs as His Word is preached, bringing conviction of sin, humbling themselves under the condemnation that they deserve, but giving them hope in Jesus Christ, that they may lay hold of Him, lay claim to Him, and plead for mercy on account of Him and His death on the cross of Calvary. And so we bring freely according to our ability that God today by his spirit may build a temple, a living temple that will be the dwelling place of the Lord our God. And so these people returning Like those of the Exodus, and yet unlike those of the Exodus, to a ruined place, live in hope. They live in hope. Here they are. They never thought that they would see their towns again. perhaps some of them were able to return to their very own homes, whether any of them were those who had left those homes themselves or were the next generation who were able to return, their fathers having told them of where they lived The kind of childhood that they had had in those towns and cities of Judah. And here they are. We're told that they lived in their towns. This was their towns. the towns that their fathers had lived in, and their grandfathers, and their great grandfathers had lived in. This is their heritage, a heritage that they thought they'd lost forever, that they'd forfeit by their father's rebellion against God. But God had promised that though they would be driven away into captivity, he would restore. and God is faithful to their promises. And so here they are crossing the thresholds of their homes, living in their own towns, because God is faithful. Here are lives restored to their place, in Jerusalem and in Judah. The place they had forfeit, but the place by the grace of God they have been restored to in hope of a better future. And they give to us the evidence of God's faithfulness. His promises are sure. So we can come to him. We can come as sinners who have forfeit any right, any claim to his favour. We can come to him through Christ and we can have the assurance that in Christ life will be restored and we will be given an eternal hope that will not be put to shame. Praise be to the Lord. Let's pray. Our Father, we thank you that you are the covenant-keeping, faithful God. and that our salvation does not depend upon us but is entirely dependent upon you and your kindness to us. And we thank you that you invite all people everywhere to turn in repentance from their sins and to come to Jesus Christ seeking forgiveness and reconciliation and you have said that you will turn no one away What gift of grace is this to unworthy sinners and how we see it exemplified in this people restored from captivity in Babylon to the place of their fathers in Judah and in Jerusalem and what encouragement it is to us to look to you in faith and to cling to that eternal hope. For in Christ there is restoration, in him there is life. We give you praise and pray that you would help us day by day to cling to you, the faithful covenant-keeping God. In Jesus' name. Amen.