Under the sovereign power and influence of the Spirit of God, remarkably Cyrus, King of Persia, decreed that the Jews should return to Jerusalem, that they should resettle their land and rebuild their temple and offer prayers to God on behalf of the King of Persia. He even made provision for the building. And he commanded that the neighbors of the Jews in Babylon should give them gifts to help towards the work. And so a remnant of Israelites returned to Jerusalem in 538 BC. And they laid the foundation of the temple in the following year or so. Things were looking promising. but the people of God will always have their enemies. And in the days of Zerubbabel and Yeshua, their particular antagonists soon gathered at the site of this great construction project. I want you to notice three things about their adversaries. And the first is to note the subtlety of their adversaries. When they came to them, they simply requested that they may be involved in helping with rebuilding the temple. They said, let us build with you, for we worship your God as you do, and we have been sacrificing to him ever since the days of Esarhaddon, king of Assyria, who brought us here. And there in that last phrase is really a note of warning. Who are these adversaries of the returned exiles? Who are these who would rise up against Judah and Benjamin? Well to answer that question we really need to go back in time and back a few pages in our Bibles to the book of 2nd Kings and the 17th chapter. This is in the time when the northern kingdom of Israel which was separated from the southern kingdom of Judah. The northern kingdom which comprised 10 tribes of Israel was coming to the end of its existence. they were to be more or less obliterated and taken into captivity. And as they were taken away, not all in one go, but in a succession of exiles, their homes and their territory were filled with exiles from other parts of the Assyrian Empire. And we read in chapter 17 of 2nd Kings and verse 24, the king of Assyria brought people from Babylon, Kuta, Ava, Hamath and Sepharim and placed them in the cities of Samaria instead of the people of Israel. And they took possession of Samaria and lived in its cities. And at the beginning of their dwelling there, they did not fear the Lord. Therefore the Lord sent lions among them, which killed some of them. So the king of Assyria was told, the nations that you have carried away and placed in the cities of Samaria do not know the law of the God of the land. Therefore he has sent lions among them, and behold, they are killing them, because they do not know the law of the God of the land. Then the king of Assyria commanded, send there one of the priests whom you carried away from there and let him go and dwell there and teach them the law of the God of the land. So one of the priests whom they had carried away from Samaria came and lived in Bethel and taught them how they should fear the Lord. But every nation still made gods of its own and put them in the shrines of the high places that the Samaritans had made, every nation in the cities in which they lived. The men of Babylon made Sukkoth Benoth, the men of Quth made Nergal, the men of Hamath made Ashima, and the Avites made Nibaz and Tartak, and the Sepharavites burned their children in the fire to Adramelech and Anamelech, the gods of Sepharavim. And they also feared the Lord, and appointed from among themselves all sorts of people as priests of the high places, who sacrificed for them in the shrines of the high places. So they feared the Lord, but also served their own gods, after the manner of the nations from among whom they had been carried away. To this day they do according to the former manner. They do not fear the Lord and they do not follow the statutes or the rules or the law or the commandment that the Lord God commanded the children of Jacob whom he named Israel. So here are nations that have been brought in, they're followers and they are mixed in with the remnant of the Israelites who remained in the land and they've been given a priest who has taught them how they are to fear the Lord. And so they're described as those who fear the Lord but we should really put that in inverted commas. They kind of fear the Lord. They're worshipping God, yes, but they're doing it in a wrong way, in a false way, in an unprescribed way, in what we may say is a syncretistic way in which they're mixing the worship of foreign gods, of false gods and idols with the worship of the Lord, the God of Israel. And that then becomes an impure worship, an imperfect worship, a substandard worship, or to put it even more bluntly, an unacceptable worship to God. and it is these people then that we are confronted with or at least Zerubbabel and Yeshua and their contemporaries were confronted with at the foundation of the temple in Jerusalem who said to them, let us build with you for we worship your God as you do. We have always worshipped him since we came into this land. but they do not belong to the land, they are not of the people of God and they do not worship them as they do. There may be aspects of it, they may use some of the right language, they may use some of the right paraphernalia related to the worship of God. They may offer certain sacrifices that are for certain purposes prescribed in God's law, but altogether this is a polluted religion, a polluted worship, an unacceptable worship to God. Their claim is false. But if Zerubbabel And Yeshua and the elders of the father's houses had not been alert to who it was that had come, thinking that perhaps they were simply some of a remnant of Israel who had lived in the land before them and that they were true to the Lord. Had they not been on their guard to some of the phrases that were used, the language that was employed to describe their situation, they may have welcomed them and embraced them. and therefore had their own worship corrupted, their own worship polluted. For we can be certain that the motives of these men was not for the good of the Jews who were returned exiles from Babylon, but for their own purposes, to build their own reputation and their own standing in the eyes of the King of Persia. They used subtle means to seek to undermine the work of rebuilding the temple. Not just the temple. The temple was just a structure, really. It wasn't so much the temple that mattered, but what was to go on in the temple, and what the temple symbolised. The presence of God in the land, and the worship of God by his people. But if that worship was compromised, if that worship was undermined then how could they have assurance that God would remain among them, he had withdrawn himself previously and he had sent them into captivity, they could have no assurance that these lessons that ought to have been learned should not once again be the reality for them. And so we see in this the subtlety of the adversaries, that they don't come with swords and spears to end the work. They come with words of unity and peace, but it's not true unity because it's not a unity that is based upon the truth of God and his word. And this is something that all through the ages of the church, God's people have had to be aware of and on their guard against and over and over again we see in the history of the church how its witness has been undermined and its worship has been polluted as people have departed from the truth of God's word to incorporate other things and indeed even today we find and hear repeated the call to unite the call to be tolerant, the call to be inclusive, the call not to stand aloof or stand apart or stand separate. But it has always been God's call to stand separate from that which is evil, to stand separate from that which does not obey him and does not submit to him, to stand separate from that which mingles with the truth of his word, the lies of Satan. And so we too must be on our guard. that we must know the truth of God's word and by all means unite with those who are committed to that truth. But where there is an undermining of it, we should have the response of Zerubbabel and Yeshua and the heads of the father's houses, you have nothing to do with us. You have nothing to do with us. And we ought not to be ashamed of making that stand. We make that stand on the firm foundation of God and his word. This is where we stand. But in making that stand, the men of the returned exiles infuriated their adversaries. And so the second thing that I want you to see from this passage is the seriousness of the adversaries. They were persistent and unrelenting in their opposition. They tried through subtlety to undermine the work, but having been rebuffed And now they take a more direct way. We're told in verse four, then the people of the land discouraged the people of Judah and made them afraid to build and bribed counselors against them to frustrate their purpose. Discouragement, intimidation, bribery. Well, we're not given any indication of the details of how they went about doing this. But it is evident that what they did struck fear into the hearts of the returned exiles. All the days of Cyrus, king of Persia, even until the reign of Darius, king of Persia. Indeed, a decade and a half was to pass when little progress was made on the rebuilding of the temple. There the foundation lay, but nothing more. And then we come to verse 6, and we need to be aware that here we have a kind of a parenthesis. You might even like, as one commentator suggests that you should, Put an opening bracket at the beginning of verse 6 and a closing bracket at the end of verse 23 in your Bible. Because essentially this passage from verse 6 through verse 23 is not talking about what is happening in the days of Zerubbabel and Yeshua and their contemporaries. These are things that are happening later. In fact they're happening much later. They're happening decades later. but the writer has given them to us to emphasize the seriousness of the adversaries. The opposition continues and it continues on and on and on and on well into the future. How do we know that it's well into the future? Well, we're given the names of Cyrus, king of Persia. He is the one that God prompted to decree the return of the Jews to Jerusalem to rebuild the temple. And so Zerubbabel and Yeshua have come to Jerusalem to fulfil that order from King Cyrus. And then we have King Darius. Well, in between Cyrus and Darius there's another king, Cambyses, who reigned for just over ten years. So from the days of Cyrus, king of Persia, through the reign of Cambyses, king of Persia, even until the reign of Darius, king of Persia, these opponents, these adversaries, are seeking to undermine the work. But then in verse 6 we suddenly have another king mentioned. In the reign of Ahasuerus, in the beginning of his reign, they wrote an accusation against the inhabitants of Judah and Jerusalem. But Ahasuerus comes after Darius. He's otherwise known as King Xerxes, and his name becomes very familiar when you read the story of Esther, for she was married to him. And so the book of Esther deals with the times of King Ahasuerus or King Xerxes. These are happening much later, about 30, 40 years after the events of the building of the temple. And so these are things that are going on later and yet their opponents are still trying to undermine the work. And then in verse 7, we have another king mentioned in the days of Artaxerxes. Now Artaxerxes is the son of Ahasuerus or Xerxes. He's the king that reigned during the lives of Ezra. Now the whole of this book that we're in now has the title Ezra but Ezra doesn't appear until chapter 7. He doesn't appear until some decades have passed and he brings another group of men back to Jerusalem to continue the work. And then after Ezra we have Nehemiah. Well, Artaxerxes reigned in the life of Ezra and into the life of Nehemiah. So it's this king then that is reigning much later that we're told was asked to bring an end to the work in Jerusalem. Now this king and the work that he is asked to stop is not the building of the temple. By this time, the temple has been completed. So we notice in verse 12, they are rebuilding that rebellious and wicked city. They are finishing the walls and repairing the foundations, not of the temple, that's been constructed. But now it's the foundations and the walls of the city itself. And so the opposition is continuing. 60, 70 years later they're unrelenting in their opposition to the people of God who are re-inhabiting the land of promise and rebuilding the city of Jerusalem. They ask King Artaxerxes to check the records They present to him various arguments as to why Jerusalem should not be rebuilt. They claim that Jerusalem is a rebellious city, they cannot be trusted, and if it is to be rebuilt then its inhabitants will no longer pay tribute and custom and toll to the Persians, and indeed they will no longer be a possession of the Persians. This is the accusation that is presented and the king sends answer to them telling them I've made some raise some questions with my scribes and my historians and you're absolutely right that city from of old has risen against kings and rebellion and sedition have been made in it and mighty kings ruled over Jerusalem and over the whole province beyond the river therefore make a decree that these men be made to cease. and not rebuild the city until a decree is made by me. Well, it's really old history. Yes, Jerusalem had once been strong. Yes, it had once had mighty kings reigning over it, but this was centuries earlier. For many, many, many years, it had been a weak nation and a weak city. Nevertheless, the work was forced to stop. Verse 23, this is the end of that parenthesis, illustrating the seriousness of the adversaries. When the copy of King Artaxerxes' letter was read before Raham and Shimshi the scribe and their associates, they went in haste to the Jews at Jerusalem and by force and power made them cease. And they went beyond the King's decree. He had decreed that the work should cease, the work of rebuilding the walls and the foundations of the city. But they went far beyond that. For when we read the book of Nehemiah and men had come to Nehemiah with news of the city, Nehemiah tells us, they said to me, the remnant there in the province who had survived the exile is in great trouble and shame. The wall of Jerusalem is broken down and its gates are destroyed by fire. That's not referring to Nebuchadnezzar's destruction of the walls of Jerusalem. That's referring to the work of Raham and Shimshi by force bringing an end to the rebuilding of the city and going so far as to destroy the work that they had already done on the walls and to burn the gates of the city. This is how serious these adversaries are in opposing the work of God's people in rebuilding his kingdom, as it were, here in this world. And the third thing that we need to see is the success of the adversaries. Well we see a measure of success during the reign of King Artaxerxes well into the future beyond the days of Zerubbabel and Yeshua. But in verse 24 of chapter 4 of Ezra we're back now where verse 5 finished. At verse 5 we're told that they frustrated their purpose all the days of Cyrus king of Persia even until the reign of Darius king of Persia. Then verse 24, this is picking up from verse 5, then the work of the house of God that is in Jerusalem stopped and it ceased until the second year of the reign of Darius king of Persia. So the opponents were successful in grinding the work to a halt for 16 years during the latter part of Cyrus's reign, the whole of Cambyses's reign, and into the early part of Darius's reign. Undoubtedly they were successful. But their success would not last. or the adversaries of God's people, they will be successful from time to time, they will slow and even stop the progress of the Lord's work from time to time. We see it here, we can relate other periods in history and places in the world where the adversaries of God's people have been successful but they're not wholly successful. It's a temporary success. It's a partial success. It's never a lasting success. For though the adversaries may attempt through subtlety or even through more brazen opposition, and though they may persevere with unrelenting seriousness in their attempts to have success, Ultimately, they are opposing not just God's people, but they're opposing God himself. And our God is not like their gods, a figment of man's imagination. or the construction of his hands. Our God is the living God who created the heavens and the earth and sustains it all by the word of his power. Our God is the one who planned before the beginning of the world to provide for his people, to protect his people, to save his people. and to destroy their enemies. Our God is the almighty God against whom no one can ultimately be successful in their opposition. And so it proves true in the story of the book of Ezra as it unfolds and we will see it and through into the life of Esther and then in the life of Nehemiah. And on through history, God is always successful. He always fulfills his word and promises, and nothing is able to stand in his way. Even what seem to be setbacks, God uses to further his work. And at the very moment of the adversary's greatest and boldest assault in all the history of the world, God proved his wisdom and his power by turning it into the greatest victory over the enemies of God and his people. And in it he secured his enemy's eternal downfall and his people's eternal salvation. For it all climaxes in the life and the death of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who it may seem had come to meet his end under the successful schemes of Satan and his servants in this world, as he hung dying on that cross and then buried in that tomb. But that was all the plan of God. It was all the purpose of God. He uses the hatred. He used the scheming. He used the opposition of his enemies to fulfill his work. That work that required his son to die in the place of his people. That work required, that required a substitute to be offered up in death to take the death of his people. and bury it in the grave forevermore and free them to eternal life. In the very act of it seeming to be Satan's greatest achievement, God gains the victory. And salvation is secured for all who will trust in him. but all who will trust in him will become targets of the evil one. Revelation chapter 12 so vividly presents to us the picture of Christ's being taken up into heaven victorious over the grave only to have the serpent then turn his attention to Christ's people. and to pursue them relentlessly. Do not be surprised that the world hates you, said the Apostle John in 1 John 3 in verse 13. Don't be surprised that the world turns against you. Don't be surprised when it seeks to come with all its subtleties, to draw you away from God, to draw you into compromise in your convictions. Don't be surprised when it comes with more blatant and brazen opposition against you, making lies against you, turning people against you. Don't be surprised that the attacks will come persistently, day after day, month after month, year after year. Don't be surprised that at times they may seem to be successful, when everything seems to be falling apart. when the hopes and expectations that you saw in the prosperity and the progress of the church seem to be dashed to pieces. Ultimately, we will be more than conquerors through Jesus Christ who has loved us. And so, like Zerubbabel, like Yeshua, Like the heads of the fathers' houses in Israel, we must keep trusting. We must keep hoping. We must keep praying. We must keep living for our God and our Saviour, Jesus Christ, who will prove the victor in it all. Let's pray. Almighty God, we have each, in various ways, experienced the schemes of the adversary. Some of us have known what it is to crumble before them. And yet, you have kept us. You have reinvigorated us. You have given us hope. And so as the opposition is extended from year to year, as it seems at times that there is no end to the schemes of Satan and his servants in this world, help us by your Spirit to keep trusting. May we keep hoping. in those promises that you have given to us. And so, may we keep living for Jesus and honour him in our lives, we pray, in his precious name. Amen.