Last week, we began a short series out of an Old Testament book, the book of Ezra. It's probably not one you've spent a lot of time before. And in that particular book, we basically gave an overview of four chapters. As we looked at that particular section of scripture, I asked the question. And what the question was is, God had just punished Israel for 70 years of bondage, and he promised well before that 70 years of bondage that when the 70 years was over, he was gonna bless them in a mighty way. And the 70 years were over, and the Lord started blessing, and he asked Israel to do a few things, and they didn't do it. And the question I have was, why? Why? Because the ultimate lesson is, has God equipped us as a New Testament church? Are there things we're supposed to be doing and we're not doing it also? So I'm gonna take just a couple minutes and review what we did last week and then we'll move forward. The book started off in Ezra 1, 1 and 2. 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, that he made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom, and put it also in writing, saying, Thus saith Cyrus, king of Persia, the Lord of God of heaven, hath given me all the kingdoms of the earth, and he hath charged me to build him an house at Jerusalem, which is in Judah. Now, if you remember, we went to Jeremiah 29, and Jeremiah predicted that you're going to be overrun and ruled and under bondage for 70 years. He says, but the good news is at the end of 70 years, I'm going to return you home and restore it. So what happened was, is as soon as the Babylonian reign was over and they were taken over by the Meadow Persians, King Cyrus, who was in charge of it, the Lord put it on his heart to take these foreigners that were scattered slaves throughout all the Middle East and say, okay, whoever wants to go back home, you go home and I want you to rebuild your city and your temple. And by the way, here's all the provisions and here's all the authority and here's some funds to help you do that. And by the way, when the temple was overrun and Nebuchadnezzar took away all the artifacts and stuck them in his pagan temples, he says, you can even take all those back. I mean, that was an incredible miracle, but the thing was is God predicted what happened 70 years before it did. So, what we did is we moved forward and we watched him when we thought, wow, this is a great revival. but there wasn't a revival. So we moved forward and it turned out chapter two was nothing but a bunch of jounce and I'm not downplaying that but the genealogy is more for records and keeping track of people and we didn't spend much time in there. But then we went on to chapter three and they actually began. So let me just read a couple verses here. I'm gonna read Ezra three, 10 and 12. And when the builders laid the foundation of the temple of the Lord, they set the priests and their apparel with trumpets and the Levites, the sons of Asaph with cymbals to praise the Lord after the ordinance of David, king of Israel. Verse 12, and all the people shouted with great shout of the priests and the Levites and the chief of the fathers who were ancient men that had seen the first house. when the foundation of this house was laid before their eyes and wept with a loud voice and many shouted aloud for joy. So when this building finally got started, they cleared away some of the rubble and they laid a foundation for the new temple. And the old timers were sad. They saw the temple and last week what we did is we were asking the question, When they were weeping, was it because they were mourning their behavior that caused them to be overrun? Was it tears of happiness? Or were they lamenting that, man, this ain't nothing compared to the old days. And we asked that question last week, and I'll let you string it along. I wanted to know who would read ahead and find out. Well, it turned out that, well, right there, we asked that question, and I kinda left that hanging. Why? Now, they laid the foundation, but the problem is, it stopped there. After the foundation was laid, the building never got built, okay? Real quickly, an overview, chapter four. Read a couple of words and a couple of verses in Chapter 4. Let me read this, Chapter 4, 23 and 24. Now, when the copy of King Artaxerxes' letter was read before Raham and Shemshi, the scribe and their companions, they went to haste to Jerusalem unto the Jews and made them cease by force in power. Then ceased the work of the house of God, which is at Jerusalem. So it ceased in the second year in the reign of Darius the king. So some adversaries jumped up and they were mad that the house was getting rebuilt and they started doing their politicking and they got a decree from the king to stop. building the house. So, and I left it with you with a question. Why didn't the house get built? They had a king. Was it because they dilly-dallyed and they didn't strike when the iron was hot? We asked all the questions, okay? So this is something interesting because on Wednesday night, and those of you that joined us on Wednesday night, we had a little bit of a sneak preview. I'm gonna go to chapter five. Let me read chapter five, verses one and two. Then the prophets Haggai, the prophet, and Zechariah, the son of Edo, prophesied unto the Jews that were in Judah and Jerusalem in the name of the Lord, in the name of the God of Israel, even unto them. Then rose up Zerubbabel, the son of Shittael, and Jeshua, the son of Josedach, and began to build the house of God, which is in Jerusalem, and with them were the prophets of God helping them. So a long period of time went by, and God sent two prophets, Haggai and Zechariah, and they went and preached to the people, and after they got done preaching, the people started building again. So again, here's Darius, he decrees and says, build this house, they lay a foundation, and then it stops and it stalls out. And I'm guessing it stalled out for about 46 years. Okay, and I'll give you the reason why in just a second. 46 years, and God said, listen, I decreed that my house get built. Get it going, and he sent two prophets. So, on Wednesday night, we looked at this passage right here in chapter five, one and two. And God sent two prophets, and it says they spoke to him, and we're sitting there scratching our heads and saying, it sure would be nice to understand what they said. I wish we had a record of it. And lo and behold, do you recognize these two guys, Haggai and Zechariah? Well, they're two of the minor prophets. And what they said is recorded in the book of Haggai and the book of Zechariah. So that's what we looked at on Wednesday night. And I'm not going to go re-preach that sermon, but I want to hit some of the high points just to show you. So in Haggai chapter one, the first couple of verses, this is what it says. The Lord's, I mean, thus speaketh the Lord of hosts, saying, This people say, The time is not come, the time that the Lord's house should be built. Then came the word of the Lord by Haggai, the prophet saying, is it time for you, O ye, to dwell in your sealed houses, and this house lie waste? Now therefore, thus saith the Lord, the host, consider your ways. Haggai came back and looked at him, and he says, some of you saying the time's not right. But God's looking and says, you're building up your houses really nice. You've finished it all off, you've got it all finished out, you got all the extras, but mine is just a bunch of stones here lying on the ground with a foundation and no walls and no ceiling. And he says, consider your ways. So they start building. Zachariah said, The first couple of, now we're not gonna read these whole books. It seems like Haggai's about, oh, 10 chapters long, and I think Zechariah's about 14 chapters long, but basically he gets after them pretty good. But this is the beginning of that book. The Lord hath been sore displeased with your fathers. Therefore say thou unto them, thus saith the Lord of hosts, turn ye unto me, saith the Lord, and I will turn unto you, saith the Lord. Be ye not as your fathers, and to the former prophets cried, saying, thus saith the Lord of hosts, turn ye now from your ways and from your evil doings. But they did not hear, nor hearken unto me. So the two prophets, Haggai and Zechariah, told them, start building my house. As a matter of fact, start obeying me. So with that being said, let's go back to the book of Ezra and let's see what's happening here. Now ultimately, this is just not a history lesson. This is not us just looking down our noses at a bunch of Israelites a couple thousand years ago and saying, I would never do that. This is the lesson where we learn from them. You know what old Winston Churchill used to say, those who don't learn from history are cursed to repeat it. Well, we wanna know what they did or what they didn't do. And then we wanna hold up a mirror and say, are we doing the same thing? What is it? So last week's sermon was called God Did His Part. He got a mighty king named Cyrus, and he moved him to fund it, and to authorize it, and to get his house built. But the people didn't do it. And here it is 46 years later, so Lord sends him some more prophets, and says start building, and they do. But even then, it takes a little bit of time. Why? Why? Today's message, last week's was the Lord did his part. Today's message is the priesthood did their part, eventually. They didn't do it when Cyrus made the decree. It took them 46 years, but then they got going. And then if the Lord would have his way and we'd continue studying this, it's the people's part would be next week. So you're thinking, wow, I'm off the hook for one more week. This is all in Brother Dolph. No, I think y'all are priesthood in a way and every head of household is too. So we'll see this. I want to kind of shed this blame and not get all in my toe stepped on today. But I took this lesson very, very, very much to heart. Okay, so I'm going to do a little bit of summarizing here. In chapters five and six, here's an overview of these chapters. Cyrus's decrees were finally upheld and enforced by Darius and Artaxerxes. Judas adversaries wrote Darius and said, hey, they're building again. Darius researched the matter and he got an old scroll. He dusted off the cobwebs and went into the archives and he found, he says, you know what? The Jews are right. Cyrus actually did tell them to build it and they're doing exactly what Cyrus did. So Darius says, okay, let them build it. Which is kind of a miracle in itself. And then not only did he grant permission, but you know what he did? He sent letters all the way across the Jordan, and he says, don't you dare hinder them. Matter of fact, if you hinder them, you're gonna have trouble with me. Matter of fact, whatever they ask for, you give them. Matter of fact, I don't even want you to tax them anymore. You can tax your people, but don't tax them. Darius really got that ball rolling again. And then four years later, the building was complete. So finally we see a completed temple in chapter six, 14 and 15. Yay, finally. Okay, the Lord decreed it in chapter one, in chapter six, which I believe is about 46 years later. You're thinking, why do you think that's 46 years? Let me kind of give you this. I'll go forward here. I had to go to the New Testament to figure this out, and I'll tell you why I couldn't figure it out. Well, first, let me give it to you right here. I went in the history books, and I got all the Persian kings. Look at them names up there. Do you see how many Darius's there are? Do you see how many Artaxerxes there are? It was hard. And some of them have nicknames, and some of them in history are known by two or three names. So it was really hard to figure out who was what. I couldn't figure out when Haggai was writing, when Zechariah was writing, when Ezra was writing, and they were naming people like Artaxerxes and Xerxes, and they name Artaxerxes, then they name a Darius, and then another Artaxerxes. I couldn't figure out who they're talking about. But I think this is really slick. In John 2, Jesus Christ made a comment. He says, when you kill me, He says, I will raise it up again in three days. Well, the Pharisees misunderstood Jesus Christ. And look what they say. This is recorded in John 2, 18 through 21. The Jews said unto him, what sign showest thou unto us? Jesus answered and said, destroy this temple. He was talking about his body. And in three days I will raise it up. Then said the Jews, 40 and six years was this temple in building. And wilt thou rear it up in three days? But he spake of the temple of his body. So I'm guessing from the time that the temple was laid to the finally they finally finished it was 46 years and we got scripture to go by that. And I don't have to rely on a history book with a whole bunch of names. Okay. And then once I have the scripture and the 46 lines up, we can go over there and we can figure out which Darius it was and we can go with all that. But that's not the point of my lesson. The point of my lesson was a decree was made and God said, build my house. In 46 years, they finally got roundabout with a kick in the seat of the pants along the way. I hope that's not us. Amen. But the priesthood finally got their act together. And that's what I wanna spend my time on. So I've got those, I'm gonna skip forward and I just wanna go to the good part. What did the priesthood do? This is the first thing they did. This is in Ezra six, 16 through 22. This was immediately after the temple was built. This is what the priesthood did. In verse 17, they sacrificed Bullocks and rams and lambs and sin offerings for themselves and for every tribe of Israel. The first thing they did was they made sin offerings, they repented, they confessed their sins, and they made the sacrifices. That's the first thing they did. The second thing they did is they set themselves apart to serve God. Before, they were too interested in their farms and their businesses and all those other things, and they finally says, okay, I'm gonna put that way, and we're gonna be full-time preachers. Okay? This is an important work, and I can't be a half a soldier. And then what they did is they purified themselves. They made themselves ready to worship. And then finally they separated themselves from the heathen. They said, okay, I'm entangled enough in the world, I need to separate myself, and I need to dedicate myself to the Lord and his work. That's the fourth thing the priesthood finally did. And they finally got themselves in a place where they could lead. Before, when they were entangled up in all these other things, the people followed them, and their priorities were there. So ultimately, God became their first thoughts, their affections, their work, and their ambitions. That was the priesthood. And the way the priesthood went was the way the people followed. Amen? Okay. It's real interesting. What I would encourage you to do, if you go home this week, and sometime you think, what should I read? Do me a favor, read Ezra 1, and then read Ezra 7. And you know what, you're gonna find that they're almost identical. What happens is, is in chapter one, God works on Cyrus, and the people did nothing for 46 years, and then he works on another Persian king, and they do almost the exact same thing. Cyrus says, build my temple. The 46 year later, the Persian king says, send my people home. He says, let them do their work. Let them worship their God. Here's some money, I'm gonna even give them their money. The people that don't wanna go home, let them make the offering so they can take them home and keep this going. And this was something remarkable. He said, and let them govern themselves. Whatever their spiritual laws are, let them judge themselves, let them punish themselves, let them take care of their own, and he gave them complete autonomy, which is absolutely incredible. You just leave them alone. Think of a foreign power that's willing to do that with a segment of his people. And that's exactly what he did. Cyrus did it, and then in chapter seven, 46 years later, the new Persian king does it. It's absolutely incredible, the parallel there. But this time, it took, stuff started happening. But there was a difference from the first six chapters to the last four chapters. The priesthood did something different, but the people did something different, and that's what we're here to learn from, amen? And this is what I wanna spend the rest of my time doing. Here it is. In Ezra seven, here's two of my favorite verses in the whole book. Ezra seven in verse six and Ezra seven in verse 10. If you have your Bibles, you go to it, you underline it. I've got them up here for you. You can read it from here, but these are important verses. Okay, number one, or actually number six, verse six. Ezra went from Babylon. This is in the seventh year of Darius. And notice what he calls him. He calls him a ready scribe. What do you think that means? A ready scribe in the law of Moses, and the king granted him all his requests. So they went, and the first time Cyrus made the decree, he made the decree throughout all the land, and he says, whoever wants to go back to Judah can go back to Judah. Here it is 46 years later, you got the new king, Darius. Darius says, whoever wants to go back to Judah can go. This time he's talking to Babylon, and in Babylon there's this young buck named Ezra. He wasn't on the scene. Ezra chapter one, but now here's in Ezra seven, here he is, and scripture calls him a ready scribe. What do you think that means? I think verse 10's gonna tell us what it means. Verse 10. And he prepared himself to preach, this is my paraphrase, so I could fit it in the screen. but did not know when, where, or to whom he was gonna preach. The only thing he knew is the what. That's not scripture. You're gonna need it in reading scripture. That's my paraphrase of it. Ezra was a ready scribe. You know what he did? He says, you know what? I got a burden to preach. I don't know when I'm gonna preach. I don't know where I'm gonna preach. I don't even know who I'm gonna preach to. But he started studying his Bible. And he started getting his sermons ready. And as he started getting his sermons ready, he says, boy, this is a good sermon. I wish I had someone to preach it to. I wonder when it's gonna happen. And he kept studying God's word, and he was preparing himself for this preaching service, this revival service. He had no idea what, when, or where, but he knew what the subject matter was gonna be. That's the difference from the first time Cyrus made the decree to the second time they had a teaching priest. Don't get me wrong, Israel always had priests, but they didn't always have teaching priests. There's a difference. I'm gonna try to go through that. Let me show you that this is a scriptural principle. Leviticus 10 in verse 11. God's given the law through Moses. And he says to the priesthood, he says, your job is to make the people know the difference of what's holy and unholy, what's clean and unclean. He says, I want you to teach Israel everything Moses said. And you know who this commandment was given to? It was Moses who was giving it to Aaron. Aaron was a priest. He says, Aaron, your job is just not to lead people through ceremonies. Yeah, you're going to observe the feast, but your job is to teach them. Notice that, teach. Second Chronicles 15.3, this was under King Asa. Look at the language here. This time, this is scripture. For a long season, Israel hath been without the true God, a teaching priest, and the law. They had priests, and they had religion, but they didn't have the true God. They didn't have a teaching priest. They had a guy up there in a robe doing all the ceremonies. He wasn't teaching the law. What do you think he was teaching? Do you think he was teaching the traditions of man? Do you understand? Underneath King Ezra and Asa, there was a revival. And the difference was, they had a teaching priest. They were still going to church. They were still going to synagogue. But it was just rote, mundane repetition. The Lord had teaching priests and all of a sudden he raised up a teaching priest and he was teaching them about God and the way they ought to behave. Teaching the difference between what was holy and unholy. Teaching the difference between what was clean and unclean. Teaching the way and you should treat your wife. Teaching the way you should be raising your children. Teaching the way you should be managing your finances. That's the difference? Yeah. teaching how to forgive your neighbor, teaching how to serve your neighbor, teaching you how to show hospitality, teaching you how to pray for one another. This is what they were teaching, as opposed to just coming and going and hear the same sermon every week after week after week. Amen? Last weekend, a week ago yesterday, I was in Angier, North Carolina, and there was a young man that was being ordained. He is now the pastor of Sugartree, which is about an hour and 15 minutes south of here in Axton. And I went to Angier for the ordination of that message, or that messenger, that minister, and Brother Michael Goins delivered the charge when the man was ordained. Good charge. These are the two verses he used. One was in Acts 20 and 28. He said, take heed unto yourself and the flock, that the Holy Ghost has made you overseers. He said, feed them. Feed them, does that sound familiar? Feed them? Where do you remember the feed them? Peter, feed my sheep, feed my lambs, remember that? He said, feed them. The second one is 1 Timothy 4, 16. Take heed to thyself and to the doctrine. So first of all, Timothy, and Paul was talking to the preachers at Ephesus, he says, first of all, you are a walking sermon. The way you conduct your life is gonna mean way more to the people than what you say. You make sure you model it. and I want you to be walking that walk because they're gonna be watching you. It's not just your children that are gonna be watching you, the whole congregation's gonna be watching you. Take heed to yourself because your words and your actions and your behavior is going to teach the people how to do it. And then he says, take heed to the flock, but also take heed to the doctrine. Stay into the word of God. And this is what Ezra did. He was a ready scribe, he was preparing himself. Notice what it said in chapter seven and verse 10. He prepared himself to preach, but he also did it. And he prepared himself to teach others to do it too. That was the difference. Nehemiah 8.8, if you know me, this is one I quote a lot. This is one of my favorite sermons. This is my favorite verses in the whole Bible. Remember when I told you Ezra was preparing himself to preach a sermon? Nehemiah 8.8 is when he finally got to preach all those sermons. He was sitting there and studying his Bible for all those years, way back even in Babylon. He says, Lord's gotta put a burden on me. I need to preach, I need to teach these people. I don't know who, when, where, or what, you know, when this is gonna happen and how it's gonna play out. Finally, in Nehemiah 8.8 it happened, but notice the way he preached. It says he read in the book of, in the law of God distinctly. You know what that means? It sounds real boring. He paid attention to verb tenses. Amen. He gave the sense. You know what that means? Context, context, context, context. Amen? He went up to verse one to find the who, what, when, where of the passage, and he made sure we didn't take things out. We can make scripture say just about anything if we ignore the above and below it. Right? But he went back and he made sure he was handling the Word of God honestly. Did you know you can handle the Word of God deceitfully? By taking things out of context. And he caused them to understand the reading. He finally got to preach those sermons. But this is how he did it. He read distinctly, and he gave the context, and the people understood what God's will was. That's the difference. That's the difference. And then finally in Ezekiel 44 and 23, neither shall a priest marry a widow or one that was put away. He was just setting apart the priesthood, taking maidens of Israel or the priest's widow, teach the difference between what's holy and profane, discern but which is clean and unclean. In other words, that's what he wanted the priesthood to do, to teach these things. Okay, so this is what the priests were supposed to do. Let's go forward here, and I wanna go back one more time. Let's go to the New Testament now. Those were all Old Testament passages, for the most part. Let's go look at the New Testament. The New Testament's not any different. Look what it says here. When Jesus Christ began his ministry, what did Jesus Christ do? Well, he went into the synagogues, And do you remember what he did when he went into the synagogues? The first thing he did was he opened up scripture. He read scripture, and then he explained scripture. You think, that's a duh. The word, the whole word, and nothing but the word. When I was ordained, I was given that commandment. I was taken that oath. Do you promise to preach the word? The whole word is nothing but the word." And I said, I do. But this is the way we've always done it. I get worried about a church when they start arguing about communion cups, or carpet color, or You fill in the blanks. You know what's happening? That's what Ezra and the church were doing for them 46 years. They were doing all the ceremony as opposed to diving into God's word and understanding God's will in their life and to see how it applies to their life. That's the difference before and after. The priest was dedicated to the word and teaching the word of God in application to their life. And that's exactly what Jesus Christ did. In Acts chapter six, two through four, I think this is absolutely essential. And the New Testament church has the office of a deacon, amen? Do you know what the office of a deacon is for? It says it right here, but before we read it, what do you think deacons are for? The office of deacon is to free up the preacher so he can spend time in this. That's what the deacon is for. Stuff needs to go on in churches. I get it, but you know what? God gets it too. But compared to the two, he's got someone that he created, an office that is supposed to teach, and he says, no, the job duties. Now, Don't get me wrong, both of them are extremely important. A church can't operate without both of them. I'm not saying one is more important than the other, but I'm saying one is different than the other and the two offices have different job descriptions. So let deacons deac and let preachers preach, okay? But this is what it says here in Acts chapter six, verse two through four. Then the twelve called the multitude. See what happened is this church at Antioch was just busting at the seams. It was growing. And that's a good problem to have. And the twelve called the multitude and said, it is not reason that we should leave the word of God and serve tables. There were some widows that needed to be fed. And you know what? Feeding widows is a good thing. And they were not saying, that's beneath me. They were saying, I am supposed to preach the word of God, and the church is getting so large that we need some help doing this service so the preachers can preach. They should leave the word of God and serve tables. Look ye out among you seven men of honest report, full of the Holy Ghost and wisdom, and appoint over this business. but we will give ourselves continually to prayer and to the ministry of the word. When preachers get so busy doing the things of the church, when there are not men to step up into the office of deacon and preachers have to do the deaconing, the church will suffer because the preachers are supposed to be given to the ministry of the word. That's their office. I share this story. When I was first starting to speak, I was in Roswell, Georgia, and the church where I was a member and starting to preach gave me the permission, we call it liberty, a license to go preach at other churches. It's called exercising your gift. And at that time, I was still a widower. So I had three small boys, and at the time they were probably, I don't know, four, five, and six, or five, six, and eight, however the old, they were about really, really small, all Titus' age and younger. And here's this widower that shows up with three young boys, and it's really hard to preach when you got three boys all over. I used to use the four corner offense and sit one front right, front left, and back right, but they still got in trouble and were peeking at each other underneath the rows. And it was real trouble. So what the church did is I took my preaching appointments, and they took turns, and the deacons went with me on my preaching appointment. So a deacon would go with me, and one of his wives would go. And they would watch my three boys as I would preach. And you'd go, wow, that doesn't look like in the job description of a deacon. The job description of deacon is to facilitate the preaching of the Word of God. And they were just facilitating the preaching of the Word of God. I was doing the best I could. But that's what the office of the deacon is for. The deacons will take care of that. And notice, they're not schleps. It says right here, seven men of honest report, full of the Holy Ghost, full of wisdom, and put them over this business. So it is an important job. But at the same time, so is preaching the word of God. So that's why he created the two offices. That is very, very important, okay? Notice, the qualifications of a pastor, there's 18 qualifications, and here's one of the 18. It says, apt to teach. In other words, well, we got this minister, and he's really good, and he's memorized a lot of scripture, and he's really smart, but the kids don't understand when he speaks. Is that apt to teach? No, that's apt to teach. He's gotta be able to communicate it. He's gotta be able to break it down so people can consume it. 2 Timothy 2.15, this is what ministers should be doing. Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of God. You know, we break it down and we pass it out. Second Timothy four, two, preach the word, be instant, in season, out of season, reprove, rebuke, exhort, with all long suffering, in doctrine. I'll tell you what, I'll be honest with you. When God called me into the ministry, I laughed, I really did. You know like when Abraham laughed when he was really old and said he was gonna have a son, I laughed. Because all my life I was in banking and I managed money in a trust department. I liked managing money. It didn't talk back. It didn't act up. It didn't argue. You could measure it, it was quantifiable. I sat in my cuticle, it was great. Because I'm an introvert. So when Lord started calling me, I said, Lord, you got the wrong guy. I gave every excuse Moses did, every, you understand? Confrontation, I hate confronting people. But this is part of the job. Amen. And he says, but speak the things which become sound doctrine. Okay, we're almost done, I got one more passage, I think. Yep, this is the last passage. At the end of Matthew 28, many people call these last five verses the Great Commission. There's five verses, I'm gonna read the first three, but the last two is gonna be my closing statement. So Jesus Christ is about ready to ascend up into heaven. Here's the disciples, the 12 apostles, or 11, and Matthias is back in there, slipped in for the 12. But here are the disciples, and he's about ready to turn them loose, and this is what he says. So then the 11 disciples went away to Galilee into a mountain where Jesus had appointed them, and when they saw him, they worshiped him, but some doubted. And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, all power is given unto me in heaven and earth. And I'm passing on that power to you. But notice what it says here. There's three verbs. Look at the three verbs that's coming up. See it? Teach, baptize, and teach some more. You got it? Teach, baptize, and teach some more. In other words, you teach them about Jesus Christ, you get them in the water, and you move on to the next person. No, that's not what it says. It says teach some more. Look it. Go ye therefore and teach all nations. And after you teach them about Jesus Christ, and after you baptize them in the name of the Father and the Son of the Holy Ghost, Teach them to observe all things. All things, what's that? I've already been baptized. Aren't I on an easy street now? No, and that's what happened to these people in Israel. When they returned to Judah, they were making the sacrifices. They were observing the feasts. They observed the Feast of Tabernacles. They observed the Passover. They were going through all the motions. But you know what? They stopped and they weren't applying it to their lives. They weren't treating their neighbors right. They weren't loving their neighbors. They weren't serving their neighbors. Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I commanded you, and lo, I am with you always, even into the end of the world, amen. From a preaching description, it sure would have been easy if Jesus just said teach, baptize. You know what, in a lot of ways, that's the easy part. But then he said, teach, baptize, and teach them to observe all things. And that's what fell apart in the book of Ezra, and that's why it took 46 years. And if ever you are inclined to go read the book of Nehemiah, Nehemiah did these same things, and you'll find out that they built the city walls, and then he went away back because he only had leave for a piece of time. And when he came back, he saw the people weren't doing the second teach, and he got on them really hard. So this is really important. So, first lesson. Last week, God did his part. He moved in the minds of principalities and municipalities. He moved in leaders and he moved people to move back home. He allowed, he got permission, he got funding, he got everything that was necessary to build this temple, and it didn't get built. So 46 years go by and God moves in a couple prophets named Haggai and Zechariah and he rekindles it and the priesthood wake up. They dedicate them to serving the Lord. They dedicate themselves to the word of God. They dedicate themselves to teaching the word of God. And all of a sudden stuff starts happening. And we got one more lesson after that. The people, what did the people do? And then when did the people stop doing it? And when did they start doing it? And that's where we're at. So, with that being said, I need to do three things. Take heed to thyself. Better look at my own walk before I open my mouth. Better be looking out at the flock. And I better be looking at the doctrine. Nothing else, the doctrine right there. This is my preaching material. This is my curriculum, amen? This and nothing more. And I'm going to be more worried about this and looking at it being applied than I'm going to look at the reputation of our ceremonies. And I pray that when we get in this last section, it'll be profit. And then I'll tell you what, let's bust it down and we might be breaking out that wall for a bigger crowd, whatever it takes, whatever it takes. May the Lord bless us. Thank you.