Ezra 3
McGeeCHAPTERS 3 AND 4THEME: Temple rebuilding begun and haltedThis first group that returned to Jerusalem after the Captivity numbered only about fifty thousand. In the next delegation, led by Ezra, only about two thousand returned. There were others who came, which may have swelled the population to about sixty thousandyet there were several million Israelites at this time. You can see that the great majority remained in the land of Babylon and in the other areas rather than return to the Promised Land.
Ezra 3:1
Obviously there is a time lapse between chapters 2 and 3 of Ezra. Ezra 2 concluded with the children of Israel returning to the land. They took an abundance of wealth with them to rebuild the temple and restore the land. During the lapse of time they built homes, because we find later that Haggai rebuked them for building their homes and neglecting the temple. The elapsed time could have been several weeks, several months, or as much as two years.
Ezra 3:2
The thing that most interests me is that they searched the Scriptures and they found what was written in the Law of Moses. When they found what was written, there was no controversy or difference of opinion. They not only returned to the land, they also returned to the Law of Moses. The Bible was their authority; therefore neither the ideas nor the opinions of individuals entered into their decisions. Things were not done for the sake of expediency. There is an application here for us. What men say and think is not important. The Scriptures are all-sufficient and contain all the instruction that is needed for the guidance of those who would be faithful to God in any particular period of church history. This is the reason I do not give talks on methods, or psychology, or sex. I preach and teach the Word of God. We need to look at the total Word of God, not just one or two familiar well-worn passages. I thank God for those familiar passages, but I think some of them have been worn out at the expense of other sections of the Word of God. When we look at the total Word of God, we won’t need a book on how to be happy though married and books like that which are going around. The Word of God has the answers. Why not go back to the source?
Ezra 3:3
The altar erected was the altar of burnt offerings. This altar, as we have already seen, speaks of the Cross of Christ. The burnt sacrifice that was offered speaks of the person of Christ and His sacrifice for us. Christ offered Himself without spot to God. He died in the sinner’s stead. What they were doing when they offered this sacrifice was meeting about the person of Christ and His atoning death. That is the place of meeting today for believers. Every believer should understand that those who have trusted Christ as Savior and have been baptized by the Holy Spirit into the body of believers (the church) are brothers. My brother is one with whom I can have fellowship. Fellowship is not a question of the color of a person’s skin, or of his social status, or of his wealth. Fellowship has nothing to do with the fact that a person is a Baptist, a Methodist, a Presbyterian, a Nazarene, a Pentecostal, or a Roman Catholic. None of that makes any difference. Is he a believer in Jesus Christ? That is the important thing. If a person is a child of God, he and I can meet together and have fellowship. This is a very wonderful thing. In these folk who had returned from captivity we find a marvelous unitywhich should characterize all the children of God. The psalmist said, “Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity!” (Psa_133:1). These people who had come back to the land were poor, humble folk. They were not seeking position; they were just trying to do the will of God. You and I are living at the end of an age, and it is becoming to those who really have an understanding of the times to be through with pretension. “The meek will he guide in judgment: and the meek will he teach his way” (Psa_25:9). We need to be meek. In our churches and other organizations we are always trying to do something big. Oh, my friend, we don’t need to do that. What we need is to meet around the person of Jesus Christ, as this returning remnant was doing.
Ezra 3:4
These folk have returned to the Word of God. They have put the altar, and now they begin to build the foundations of the temple.
Ezra 3:8
So far these people have only built an altar and laid the foundation for the temple, but they are so thrilled and enthusiastic that they act as though the entire temple has been rebuilt. They had a dedication service, a time of praise, and sang praises to God. It was a thrilling experience for them. If you are as old as I am, you can remember back in the 1920s when many churches were able to complete only the basements of their buildings. They would buy a lot, build a basement, cover the basement with tar paper, and that is where the congregation would meet. Then the Depression came, and many of those churches were never finished. The congregations continued to meet in the basements with the tar-paper roofs. These have largely disappeared today because in our affluent society we must have the very latest thing in modern architecture; we would never be satisfied with a basement. However, these Jews were delighted and thrilled with the foundation they had built. So they held a praise service.
Ezra 3:11
Now these were the younger folk who had never seen Solomon’s temple.
Ezra 3:12
There were two groups present during the dedication service. There were the young people who had never seen the temple of old. This was something new to them. In all their youth and enthusiasm they were praising God, and the Lord blessed them. The other group was composed of the old-timers. They remembered Solomon’s temple and how beautiful it was.
I have a notion that some of them said to each other, “This second temple is nothing. If these young people could only have seen Solomon’s temple!” What they were saying was not very encouraging to the young group, but it was true. One of the problems God had to overcome was discouragement that came because of the older group talking the way they did. As a result we find that Haggai the prophet told the people, “The Lord says, ‘Go ahead and build.’ God is with you. He was not in that beautiful temple of Solomon’s at the endthe glory had left itbut God is with you now. Go ahead and build!” There are a lot of old-timers today who discourage the work of God. I feel that one of the reasons that this present spiritual movement is largely outside the church today is because many old-timers are holding back. They only remember the old days, and they are not about to enter the new days. There is a danger of sitting in judgment upon this spiritual movement of today. I find myself critical of many facets of the program, and I am an old-timer. But let’s withhold judgment for a time. Let’s see what is going to happen. The Lord knows those who belong to Him. He is going to separate the wheat and the tares. That is His business, not ours. Let us thank God that there is a movement toward God today and rejoice in it. Let us not weep and criticize in this present hour. I recall that when I was a student in seminary I was asked to hold some summertime meetings in Georgia. In those days it was customary to hold meetings, which they sometimes called protracted meetings. They asked me to preach, and I did. In spite of the preacher, the Lord blessed and people were saved. I will never forget the last night of a particular meeting. Some of the young officers of the church were rejoicing with me at the way things had gone. An old-timer was sitting there listening to us. He had long whiskers, and he looked to me like Father Time. Finally he said, “You boys had a pretty good meeting, but I remember when….” Then we heard all about “when.” When he got through with his tales of the past, our meeting did not seem like anything at all. That was very discouraging; we all left a little depressed that night.
Later I asked another member of the church who was almost as old as “Father Time” and she said, “The meeting he told you about wasn’t all that great. You know, he is in his dotage, and the older he gets the bigger that meeting gets. It wasn’t nearly as wonderful as he thought it was.”