As we come again to look at God’s precious words, I remind my own heart, and I remind you, of that principle of Bible study that is absolutely indispensable: total reliance upon God’s Holy Spirit.
We do praise the Lord for His Word and for every assistance that we have, every help to help us understand His Word. But the bottom line is always this: God Himself must unveil the Lord Jesus to our hearts.
As you go through the Bible, often you read those more-than-suggestions—sometimes commands—to seek the Lord. And often God adds this little expression: “with all your heart,” “with all your soul.”
When He adds that little expression, “with all your heart and soul,” not only seek the Lord, but seek Him with all your heart, all your soul. By adding that, what is God communicating? What is the point of “with all your heart and all your soul”?
I am going to ask you to turn, just before we pray together, to a passage. As I was studying this matter of getting out of Babylon and God’s heart concerning restoration, I came to Jeremiah 32. If you would just look there for a moment—a couple of verses.
This is God’s heart as He anticipates the restoration and bringing His people back. Jeremiah 32, beginning at verse 37. Let us start there.
I will gather them out of all the countries, whither I have driven them in Mine anger, and in My wrath, and in great indignation; and I will bring them again unto this place, and I will cause them to dwell safely.
And they shall be My people, and I will be their God:
and I will give them one heart, and one way, that they may fear Me for ever, for the good of them, and of their children after them:
and I will make an everlasting covenant with them, that I will not turn away from following them, to do them good; and I will put My fear in their hearts, that they shall not depart from Me.
Yea, I will rejoice over them to do them good, and I will plant them in this land assuredly with My whole heart and with My whole soul.
—Jeremiah 32:37-41
The desire He has is to give a full restoration, to plant us in the land. He said, “I will do that with all My heart and all My soul.” It is one thing when that is applied to man; it is another thing when that is applied to the Lord.
God says, “You do not know how much I desire to have you back in the land and enjoying My rest. I will plant you there with all My heart, with all My soul.”
Our Father, we desire to seek after Thee, and we desire to seek with all our heart and all our soul.
But, Lord, when we read a passage like this—that You desire more than we desire, and You desire with all Your heart and soul to plant us in the land of rest and to bring us into the fullness of the Lord Jesus Christ—how we can only praise You.
And so this morning, Lord, we ask You, with all Your heart and soul, to accomplish what is on Your heart. We thank You in advance. In the precious name of our Lord Jesus Christ, amen.
Brothers, we are looking this weekend at the Lord’s wonderful heart as it is revealed in the book of Ezra. As I suggested to you last evening in the introduction lesson, Ezra stands at the opening of a great segment of Bible history.
It is the first book of the last one hundred years of redemptive history. It tells us the story and lays out the great principles of what has been called the great restoration.
As I was preparing my heart, I thought it would be helpful for me to look up every verse in the Bible on restoration, revive, revival, quicken, and all those verses. And I did that. How many, many passages touched my heart, as I wanted to get the truth of restoration in my own soul before I started this great book on restoration.
So I went through the Bible and looked up all those precious passages. I am going to ask you to turn, as we introduce this morning’s lesson, to a Psalm of Asaph—a great restoration Psalm, Psalm 80. I just want to get one truth before your heart from Psalm 80.
I hope, when you study the Bible under the guidance of the Holy Spirit and with a desire to go forward in a heart knowledge of the Lord, that you note recurring expressions and recurring emphases—things God says again and again and again.
Well, in this Psalm, I noted a recurring emphasis: verse 3, “Restore us”; verse 7, “Restore us”; verse 19, “Restore us.”
I want you to notice how each of those prayers—“Restore us”—has an enlarging vision of the Lord.
Turn us again, O God;
And cause Thy face to shine, and we shall be saved.
—Psalm 80:3
Turn us again, O God of hosts;
And cause Thy face to shine, and we shall be saved.
—Psalm 80:7
Turn us again, O Lord God of hosts;
Cause Thy face to shine, and we shall be saved.
—Psalm 80:19
God encourages our faith for restoration by the progressive revelation of Himself. In other words, as we cry out for restoration, the vision of the Lord increases. And the more we see the Lord, then the deeper our cry for restoration will be.
All right, back to Ezra, please. We are looking at the truth of revival. The word means “to live again.” We are looking at the truth of revival as it is given in the book of Ezra.
Now, it is not that we are seeking something called revival, but the God who revives. Always, our hearts are seeking after the Lord.
As I suggested last evening, as God gets ready to close the Bible, as He gives us the history of the last one hundred years, He gives us His servant Ezra. Ezra lays out before us the three great revivals that took place in those last one hundred years.
After God gave us that story, He closed the Old Testament. Then we wait for Messiah, who will come and make those realities true in our life.
It is those three great revivals that we are going to be focusing on. What is true, by the way, of the individual is also true of the group.
Here is the outline of the book. Ezra 1 and 2 give us the first revival. In each case, there is a picture. This is a picture of the decree of Cyrus: getting out of Babylon and returning to the land of peace, to the holy city, to Jerusalem.
That first revival has to do with getting out of bondage, getting out of captivity, and coming into freedom. We live again when God shows us—discovers to our hearts—the secrets of getting out of captivity and living in liberty.
The second revival takes place in Ezra 3 through 6. The picture is different now: this is the rebuilding of the temple. This is revival two—how to build a temple.
It is one thing to learn how to live free. It is another thing to learn how to go on: how to build, how to grow, how to advance, how to progress, how to mature in the Lord.
In this second revival—and this is the one that we will focus on this weekend together—we see the great truths of what it means to have a complete temple, what are the causes of an incomplete temple, and so on. God lays it all out in revival two.
We live again when God teaches us to live free. We live again when God teaches us how to go forward, how to build a temple.
Then the third revival begins in Ezra 7 and goes through the rest of Ezra. In fact, it goes all the way through the first ten chapters of Nehemiah—Ezra 7 through Nehemiah 10.
The picture changes again. This is not some decree of Cyrus to be free. This is not the building of the temple. This is the rebuilding of the wall.
Revival three is closely tied in with the exposition of the Word. Ezra now appears as the great expositor, showing us the Lord in the Word, and it has to do with fruit. It has to do with production.
I need to know how to live free. I need to know how to grow. I need to know how to produce fruit. Those are the three great revivals.
After God lays those out, He says, “All right, now let us wait for Jesus.” And we close the Old Testament. We wait for Bethlehem, and for our Lord to come and make these things real.
Those are the matters of life that Ezra lays before the hungry heart. As I mentioned last evening in our introduction message, we are going to be focusing on revival two: Ezra 3 through 6.
The subject is the glory of the completed temple—the temple that honors the Lord: how to build the temple and bring it all the way to completion.
Now, we are going to be looking at the pictures in the Old Testament. We will look at life principles; they are everlastingly the same. But do not get lost in the pictures.
Sometimes we can get so wrapped up in the pictures and in the history that we forget the reality. We study the Bible to know the Lord, not just to know old Bible history.
The pictures are designed to simplify. The pictures are designed to assist. They are there to help us. They should make grasping the truth a little bit easier.
So do not let the picture get in the way. We are going to follow the escaped remnant. We are going to watch what they did and what they did not do, what they did first and what they did next. But those are all pictures.
Their history is redemptive history. It tells a spiritual story. If you follow the picture, then you can see, I think, a little bit of your own spiritual history.
So may God help us with this, and may He grant us a little reviving in our own bondage.
It was a little difficult for me to decide on revival two, because you have to step over revival one. My real heart is in revival three: how to see Jesus in this book, how to study the book to produce fruit.
But I honestly felt inclined of the Lord to look at revival two. We have to assume a few things, and I pray that they are real. I pray God has done it. I pray you know about revival one.
I am not talking about the facts of Ezra. I pray that God has given you some experience in being delivered out of captivity and being brought into the liberty of the Lord—that you know a little bit about being free—because we are going to pass that and go to the next revival.
That is sort of assumed. We begin with a freed people who have now returned to the city of peace.
They had been in captivity because they did not rest. Babylon describes the life of one who has not entered into rest, and now God is bringing them out.
Of course, as you know, not everyone responded to the decree of the man with beautiful feet. You know that beautiful verse, “How lovely are the feet.” That was first applied to Cyrus in the Old Testament. He is the first one mentioned with beautiful feet because he had the gospel, and that was used later as the gospel.
He announced, “Everything is provided. Everyone is invited. Come, and come back to the city.” But only a remnant responded—just a handful, about fifty thousand out of several million.
This escaped remnant, when they came back following the decree, also had a mandate. It was not only, “Go back and live free.” They had something to do when they went back.
I am going to ask you to turn to Ezra 1, beginning at verse 2.
Thus saith Cyrus king of Persia, All the kingdoms of the earth hath the Lord, the God of heaven, given me; and He hath charged me to build Him a house in Jerusalem, which is in Judah.
Whosoever there is among you of all His people, his God be with him, and let him go up to Jerusalem, which is in Judah, and build the house of the Lord, the God of Israel (He is God), which is in Jerusalem.
And whosoever is left, in any place where he sojourneth, let the men of his place help him with silver, and with gold, and with goods, and with beasts, besides the freewill-offering for the house of God which is in Jerusalem.
—Ezra 1:2-4
Not just go and live free, but go back free and rebuild the temple. They all went back with that mandate. They knew what they were to do.
Glance, if you would, at Ezra 2:70. When they first arrived in the land, the verse says that the priests, the Levites, some of the people, the singers, the gatekeepers, and the temple servants lived in their cities—and all Israel in their cities.
In other words, if you are following the record, you say, “Well, they were seventy years in captivity. They made a seven-hundred-mile journey. When they got back, what did they do? What was the first thing they did?”
Well, according to this, the first thing they did was look up the old homestead. They all went back to their own city.
Now, God leaves it up to our sanctified imagination what it must have been like. But I think it must have been a happy time and a sad time.
As they went back, they must have been thrilled to be back in the land of promise and identified with the Lord again. But a lot of the happiness was only on the inside, because outwardly, from what we read, they went back to a mess.
It was not a very pleasant place. There was a lot of cleaning up to do. Have you ever left your house for a week, or two weeks, or a month? What does the garden look like? What does the lawn look like?
They had been gone for seventy years. Some of their property had been possessed by the enemy. Do not get the idea they could just knock at the door of the old homestead and say, “Excuse me, please. I know I have been away seventy years, but you are in my grandpa’s home. My dad lived here; my grandfather lived here. If you do not mind, would you please leave? I am back.”
You see, we just sort of read these things, but that is what they came back to in many cases. Their land had to be repossessed again.
We do not know much about how long the trip took. Later we get a clue in Ezra 7, because there was another group that came—not this large; that was only about five thousand people.
But five thousand people under the blessing of God, according to Ezra 7:9, took four months. How long did it take fifty thousand people to get there? Some people say it took over a year. We do not know how long it took. God does not tell us how long it took.
But we know this: the rebuilding of the temple did not begin until the seventh month came. Look at the first six words of Ezra 3:1: “Now when the seventh month came.”
I made some comments about the seventh month last night. That was the holiest month in the Jewish calendar. They had two calendars: the civil calendar and the religious calendar, and they were different. They had to keep track of both.
But in their religious calendar, this was a great month. It began with a trumpet blast. Leviticus 23 talks about that, and it starts with rest. They said, “This month will begin with rest. You are going to rest.”
Of course, this is the month in which the only fast in the Jewish calendar occurred. They had many feasts; they only had one fast. That great Day of Atonement was in the seventh month.
Then, beginning on the fifteenth through the twenty-second, they had the great Feast of Tabernacles. That is in the seventh month.
Failure to enter into rest brought them into captivity. It is not surprising to me that God waits until the seventh month and says, “This is all about rest. This is all about rest.”
“Now, you are going to rebuild the temple, but let us wait until the seventh month. In this month of rest, this special month, I will begin to teach you these principles.”
Look, please, at Ezra 3.
And when the seventh month was come, and the children of Israel were in the cities, the people gathered themselves together as one man to Jerusalem.
Then stood up Jeshua the son of Jozadak, and his brethren the priests, and Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, and his brethren, and builded the altar of the God of Israel, to offer burnt-offerings thereon, as it is written in the law of Moses the man of God.
And they set the altar upon its base; for fear was upon them because of the peoples of the countries: and they offered burnt-offerings thereon unto the Lord, even burnt-offerings morning and evening.
—Ezra 3:1-3
Here is a wonderful truth. Again, do not get lost in the picture, but do not despise the picture either. God gives us these wonderful pictures so we can learn His heart.
The rebuilding of the temple does not begin with the rebuilding of the temple. The rebuilding of the temple begins with the rebuilding of the altar.
That is a very important principle. As you look at Ezra 3:1, it looks like they did not start restoring the altar until the seventh month. But if you read carefully, look at Ezra 3:6.
Ezra 3:6 says, “From the first day of the seventh month began they to offer burnt-offerings unto the Lord.” In other words, the altar must have already been built by the time the seventh month arrived.
When the seventh month came, on the first day they began to offer offerings, which means that at least by the end of the sixth month, the altar had already been built.
Some might think that the altar is way back—when you get saved, that is a good starting point. But after God has made me live again and I am free, now let us talk about building the temple. Do not talk about the altar; teach me how to build the temple.
You see, they did not select some new thing. God said, “Are you serious about wanting to go on? Then you had better start at the altar. You had better go back to the altar—the old boundaries.”
From verse 3, we read that they set the altar on its foundation. They went back and looked for the place where Solomon had the altar—the very same place—and they built this altar on the same foundation.
Fifty thousand people gathered as one man, and they began to sing. Now, this is not in your Bible; it is only in mine. But I know what they sang: “Give me that old-time religion. Give me that old-time religion. It is good enough for father, it is good enough for mother, good enough for brother, good enough for me.”
They went back to the old altar.
Revival number two begins, brothers, with a return to the altar. Now, in New Testament terms, we would not say, “Return to the altar.” No, we would say, “Return to the cross—the finished work.”
That is what we would say in the New Testament. The altar was the place where the sacrifice was offered, and the cross is the place where the sacrifice was offered.
You say, “How am I going to build? How am I going to go forward? How am I going to advance? How am I going to grow?” You have got to go back to the cross. That is where it starts. It begins at the altar.
I get uneasy in my heart at the way some Christians talk about growing in the Lord. I know it is not intentional, but they sort of leave the cross behind.
I have heard people say, “You know, I just do not like that particular teacher or preacher—always preaching about the cross. That was good when I needed to get saved, but now I am saved, and I do not need that anymore. Let us move on and let us forget that.”
I tell you, you are not going to put one board on the temple if you depart from the cross. It begins at the altar.
You say, “I needed that to be saved.” Yes, you did, and you need that to grow. You need that to go forward. I am not ready to go forward if I am not standing at the altar.
You know, when you read the Ezra record, you cannot help but notice how careful they were to follow the Word of the Lord. Glance at Ezra 3:2: “As it is written in the law of Moses the man of God.” Then Ezra 3:10: “According to the directions of David king of Israel.”
Why did they start with the altar? You do not need to turn to this verse, but listen as I quote Exodus 29. It is about the altar, when God was instituting the altar.
It shall be a continual burnt-offering throughout your generations at the door of the tent of meeting before the Lord, where I will meet with you, to speak there unto thee.
And there I will meet with the children of Israel; and the Tent shall be sanctified by My glory.
—Exodus 29:42-43
God promised that He would meet them at the altar. The altar was the place that brought God and man together.
So we are talking about, “How can I build a temple?” Brothers, the starting point is not the building of a temple, not a new emphasis. The Bible is full of it.
The first thing Abraham did when he left Ur of the Chaldees in Genesis 12 was build an altar—an altar unto the Lord.
I read a book on revival in my heart preparation for this. It is a famous book. I do not want to defame the author of the book, but in the book he made this comment: “God will not send revival until we are willing to pay the price of revival.”
What do you think of a statement like that?
I told you in our introduction lesson that, in my understanding, the remnant represents the spiritual—the cream of the crop—those who said yes to the Lord.
Though all were invited and though everything was provided, when the invitation was given, there were some who decided not to say yes. They did not return; they stayed behind.
I can see the opportunity for those who responded, those we are calling the escaped remnant, to have become a little bit proud. They could have become a little exclusive.
They could have had a little esoteric spirit there and said, “You know, we said yes to God’s invitation. Cyrus gave the decree, and we responded.”
“They did not take the seven-hundred-mile journey in this trackless desert. They did not identify with the rejected people of God. They did not come back to this rubble that is now the temple and the wall and all of that, with the enemies possessing the land.”
“We are paying the price for revival. We are sacrificing. God must think very highly of us, because we were willing to say yes to Him and sacrifice and go against the natural grain and all of that.”
“We paid the price of revival, while others chose to remain in captivity and remain comfortable. Oh, yes, they threw us a few coins. They provided financially, but we are the ones that went. We are the ones that left. We are the ones that sacrificed.”
Do you see, brothers, how the altar was God’s great safeguard against that proud spirit? What a tremendous thing God did.
In Ezra 3:3, on the altar they had to offer burnt offerings to the Lord every morning and every evening. That is known in the Bible as the morning and evening sacrifice.
In other words, at nine o’clock every morning and three o’clock every afternoon, they had the morning sacrifice and the evening sacrifice.
What is the basic idea of the burnt offering in the morning and the burnt offering in the evening? The worshipper, as he came to the Lord, was basically saying this: “This animal, this lamb, is getting what I deserve.”
“I deserve to have my throat slit. I deserve to have my lifeblood poured out on the ground. I deserve to be consumed upon this altar, but I have a substitute. This animal is my substitute, and this animal is getting what I deserve.”
In other words, to check the proud spirit—“We must really be something. God must be proud of us. We are the remnant. We said yes. We came all the way”—God says, “No.”
“Two times a day, you will stand as death-deserving sinners. Two times a day, every day, you will stand before Me as one who deserves to be condemned.”
Oh, it has to begin with the altar. That is the death knell to pride.
You know, it is very refreshing to be in the company of a believer who honestly believes all he deserves is hell, all he deserves is the wrath of God. It is almost impossible to offend a person like that.
You meet somebody who honestly believes, “I deserve nothing. Everything is the mercy of God. That is what I deserve today. That is what I deserve tomorrow, next week, next month, next year, all the days of my life.”
It would not be possible for me to have my sissy feelings hurt if I really believed that.
That is what God did for this remnant. He said, “You are coming back? You are going to be free? You really want to know how to build the temple? Then you come back to the place, you stare at the altar, and you remember your substitute and all He has done.”
God wanted a humble remnant to build a temple, not some who think they are special because they said yes to the Lord.
You know, the altar was there many years before the temple was rebuilt—many years before the wall was rebuilt.
Remember, I told you they went seventy years into captivity because they did not rest for seventy Sabbaths. We looked at that last evening.
They were real anxious to build a wall. They could not wait to get back because they thought that was their protection. “The wall is there. That is my separation. That is my protection. That is my beauty. Let us build the wall.”
God said, “Not yet. I will be your wall. You are going to learn rest. You are going to learn to trust Me.”
They said, “Can we build a wall now?” “No, you wait ten years.” “Can we build a wall now?” “No, you wait twenty years.” “Can we build a wall now?” “No, you wait.”
You know when they built a wall? They had to wait seventy years to build a wall. You know why? God said, “You are going to learn: I am your wall. I am the glory in the midst. You are going to have to trust Me. You are going to have to rest in Me.”
The altar begins the building of the temple. God takes us back to the truth that every good thing God has ever done for us is based on the atonement.
Now, I deliberately stated it that way. I did not say every good thing God has ever done for us is in the atonement. There is this quarrel: what is in the atonement and what is based on the atonement? I do not doubt there is some technical difference, but I am not going to get into that now.
But I know this: every blessing in your life, every blessing in my life—and that includes physical healing—every good thing God has ever done for you is because of the precious blood of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Every good thing God has ever done for me is because of the precious blood of the Lord Jesus Christ.
You cannot talk about growing and going forward and advancing: “Give me some great truth so I can learn how to develop and go forward. I need something deeper.” There is nothing deeper than the cross, nothing deeper than the blood He shed, nothing deeper than the substitution.
If you are serious about wanting to live again, that is how it starts. That is how it started then.
In that book, the writer said that God is not sending revival because we are not willing to pay the price of revival. He gives a list.
“Are you willing to pay the price of revival? Are you willing to sacrifice fame and fortune? Are you willing to sacrifice time? Are you willing to sacrifice resources? Are you willing to pay the price of revival?”
“Are you going to spend the time needed in fasting? Are you going to spend the time needed in prayer? Are you going to spend the time needed in dedication? Are you going to spend the time needed in getting the word out?” And so on.
That is paying the price of revival. The basic error in his statement is this: that is what the altar is all about.
Christ has paid the price of revival. That is why I know I can live again, because I do not have to pay any price for revival. He has already paid it.
Some people are so busy paying the price of revival that they will never be revived. They will never live again.
God brought them to the cross to live again. Notice these verses, please: Ezra 3:3 and 4—the morning and evening; verse 4, daily, as each day required; Ezra 3:5, for the new moon; and for the fixed festivals.
The morning and evening is the daily. The new moon is the monthly. The fixed festival is the annual. In other words, it is the cross all the way through—every day, every month, every year.
He is constantly showing it. This revival begins in Ezra 3, and it ends in Ezra 6. Just glance at the end, Ezra 6:19-22. We will not read it; just look at it.
It ends with the celebration of the Passover. There it is from start to finish. This whole revival begins at the altar and ends with the Passover. It is all about the blood. It is all about the sacrifice of Christ.
Brothers, you will not advance one step in your growth in the Lord, and I will not advance one step in my growth in the Lord, if I do not take my stand on the finished work of Christ at the altar.
It always begins there. And so now we begin. The altar is completed; now comes the rebuilding of the temple.
To save time, I want to go immediately to the reality—the spiritual significance of the temple. I do not need to tell you; I am going to tell you, but I do not need to. You know what the temple is.
It is awesome to realize, brothers, that we are the house of God, that we are the temple of the Lord. We are His residence.
Where do you live? Well, my address is 35 Mohawk Drive, Portsmouth, Rhode Island, 02871. That is my address. What is His address? He lives in you.
First Peter 2:4-5:
Coming unto Him, a living stone, rejected indeed of men, but with God elect, precious,
ye also, as living stones, are built up a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.
The house of God—that expression, “house of God”—is mentioned fifty times in the book of Ezra: house of God.
Second Corinthians 6:16:
And what agreement hath a temple of God with idols? for we are a temple of the living God; even as God said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.
First Corinthians 6:19-20:
Or know ye not that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit which is in you, which ye have from God? and ye are not your own;
for ye were bought with a price: glorify God therefore in your body.
How can I build this temple? I think thousands of Christians who love the Lord have been set free from Egypt. They have neglected God’s rest, they have been chastened, they have been set free, and they have tasted a measure of liberty.
They have even been back to the altar, but they do not have a clue how to build a temple.
We have a record of the beginning of the work in Ezra 3:8. It was the second year of their coming into the land that they began their work on the temple.
Notice Ezra 3:9. In the beginning of the work, the Bible says they stood united. They were all agreed. “This is the will of God. This is why we were set free. This is why God brought us back: to build the temple of the Lord.”
They had one purpose. They were united in that. It was that way at the beginning, too, in Ezra 3:1. I love that expression: they all gathered together as one man.
Fifty thousand people gathered as one man. Did you ever see fifty thousand people in one group, in agreement with anything? You get twelve guys in a room, you have twelve opinions.
One man. They all came and said, “We know God’s will: build a temple.”
To save time, I want to just sort of tell you the history. I am sure you know it already, but let me jump ahead and show you what took place. Then we will back off and look at it in detail.
Here is what happened. They came back. They had one heart. They had one mind. They stood as one man. They were agreed: “This is God’s will. We will build the temple.”
They began to build, and they laid the foundation—Ezra 3:10.
And when the builders laid the foundation of the temple of the Lord, they set the priests in their apparel with trumpets, and the Levites the sons of Asaph with cymbals, to praise the Lord, after the order of David king of Israel.
And they sang one to another in praising and giving thanks unto the Lord, saying, For He is good, for His lovingkindness endureth for ever toward Israel. And all the people shouted with a great shout, when they praised the Lord, because the foundation of the house of the Lord was laid.
—Ezra 3:10-11
They built the foundation. They began to praise God and sing. Then the story takes a turn. Something happened.
Ezra 4:4-5:
Then the people of the land weakened the hands of the people of Judah, and troubled them in building,
and hired counsellors against them, to frustrate their purpose, all the days of Cyrus king of Persia, even until the reign of Darius king of Persia.
Jump down, please, to Ezra 4:24:
Then ceased the work of the house of God which is at Jerusalem; and it ceased unto the second year of the reign of Darius king of Persia.
Now, if you have done any donkey work, you know that when the work began, Cyrus was king. If you have studied outside Bible history, you know that later his son became king, and then Darius became king.
Brothers, we are not talking about days. We are not talking about weeks. We are not talking about months. We are talking about years, brother.
From the time the foundation was laid, the work stopped.
They had been saved. They had been freed. They had been to the altar. They had a foundation. And the work stopped.
It stopped for fifteen years. Fifteen years—nothing, nothing on the foundation.
That would be tolerable if the temple were just wood and stone and mortar. But if, as I suggested, the reality is you and me, it is a terrible thing when the work stops.
When the work of building the temple stops, it is tragic. I think in the book of Ezra one of the most tragic sentences is Ezra 4:24: “The work of the house of God, in the city of peace, ceased.”
We have all known Christians. Sometimes we do not have to look further than the mirror. We have all known Christians who have been delivered out of Egypt, neglected to rest, and tasted some of the bitterness of Babylon.
They have been set free. They know a little bit about freedom. They have been to the altar. They know a little bit about the finished work. They have a foundation. They know a little bit about doctrine.
And they stop.
You scratch your head and say, “How come you stopped? What is going on? Well, you quit. Why did you get stuck?”
The whole goal, the whole purpose of being delivered and set free, is to go back and build the temple and give Him a completed temple.
Do not just read this history, la, la, la: “The work stopped.” They began so well. They had such a good start. It began in unity—one people, a united voice, praise to God. “Look, we have a foundation.”
Then it stopped for years and years and years.
This is really, brothers, where my burden for this weekend begins. It is a word for those who have—or may be tempted to—drop out.
You had such a good start. You have seen so much. You have been so privileged. You have tasted so much. You know what it is to be free out of Babylon.
You know what it is to identify with the altar and the finished work and all those identification truths. You do have a foundation, a good foundation.
But how can I build? Thousands do not know. They do not know. Where do you go from there? And so they stop.
Ezra 4:24 says that the work on the house of God in Jerusalem ceased. Note how God dates it; that date becomes very important: it stopped until the second year of Darius.
Why is that important? I am going to ask you to turn, if you would please, to the prophet Haggai.
Haggai is hard to find, is he not? The last three books of the Old Testament are Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi—way in the back.
Haggai 1:1:
In the second year of Darius the king, in the sixth month, in the first day of the month, came the word of the Lord by Haggai the prophet unto Zerubbabel.
Have you ever seen that date before? Now turn to the next prophet, Zechariah. Zechariah 1:1:
In the eighth month, in the second year of Darius, came the word of the Lord unto Zechariah.
Have you ever heard that date before? It is the same thing.
They came back to the land. They were free. They were one. They stood at the altar. They built the foundation. For fifteen years, the work stopped, the work stopped, the work stopped.
Then, in the second year of Darius, God opened the heavens. He said, “I have a word for you.” He began to speak to His two prophets, Haggai and Zechariah.
Now go back to Ezra, if you would, because the history records this in Ezra 5:1-2.
Now the prophets, Haggai the prophet, and Zechariah the son of Iddo, prophesied unto the Jews that were in Judah and Jerusalem; in the name of the God of Israel prophesied they unto them.
Then rose up Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, and Jeshua the son of Jozadak, and began to build the house of God which is at Jerusalem; and with them were the prophets of God, helping them.
—Ezra 5:1-2
Fifteen years later, God said something to the prophets. They went back with that word and presented it to them. Whatever that was, that something, they started building again.
Ezra 6:14:
And the elders of the Jews builded and prospered, through the prophesying of Haggai the prophet and Zechariah the son of Iddo. And they builded and finished it, according to the commandment of the God of Israel.
They not only resumed the building under whatever God told Haggai and Zechariah, but they finished the building because of what God told Haggai and Zechariah.
Now, I do not know how important this is, but the Bible tells us that Haggai was an old prophet. Evidently, he had seen Solomon’s temple. Zechariah was a young prophet, called a young man.
My wife gave me an association to remember which was the old prophet, Haggai, and which was the young prophet, Zechariah. I will not share that association with you. You could probably figure it out.
God used the old man, and God used the young man. It is amazing—perhaps this is not always the case—but when I read Haggai, it is so severe. Some of the things he says are encouraging, but they are strong words.
I look at the young man, and there are such comforting words and soothing words. I wonder if God uses the elder saints to give the strong word. I do not know about all that; I will just leave that to you.
But the point is this: after all that time, God spoke.
Do not get the idea that if, for some reason, you stop along the way—and you have tasted freedom in the Lord, you have tasted a little of the finished work, you have good doctrine, you have a foundation—and all of a sudden you stop building, that down the road you are going to say, “I think I will start seeking the Lord again. I think I will start building now.”
It is not going to happen. God is the initiator. God was patient, teaching them a lot of things during this time.
Let me just present this to you, and we will pick it up here tonight. If you read Ezra, you are reading the outside story. We are going to look at it tonight: the outside story.
If you read Haggai and Zechariah, you are reading the inside story.
In other words, if I go through Haggai and Zechariah, I am amazed, because you can follow the reasons. If you ask this question, “Why did they stop?” you can see it. It will tell you.
The Samaritans came in, and they came with force. There are reasons, good reasons. They are logical. If you read it carefully, most of them are spiritual.
They had good reasons: “We have to submit to government.” Of course God expects us to submit to government. The government said, “Do not do it.” That is a good reason.
You ask somebody who has not been building the temple, “Why did you stop?” He will give you good reasons.
Ezra gives the outside reasons. God waited fifteen years, and then from heaven He revealed, “No, I am going to give the real reasons you quit. They are not what it looks like.”
You read Ezra and you see the outside story. You read Haggai and Zechariah, and you see God’s heart.
Every time someone has an incomplete temple, it is because of this. God said, “These are the reasons, and the only reasons, anyone ever quits.” Then He said, “Here is My answer to that.”
He gives the perfect cure for an incomplete temple.
We do not have time to look at everything. But starting tonight, what I would like to look at with you, brothers, is the real causes for an incomplete temple.
We are going to look at four of them. There are more, but we are looking for the real causes. People get stuck. People quit. People throw in the towel. People do not build.
They go as far as the foundation, and then they let it be overgrown with thorns. God said, “Here is the real reason.” In each case He said, “Here is My answer to that. Here is My answer to that.”
When they heard what they did not see—after fifteen years, nothing had changed on the outside, so all their reasons went down the drain—when they saw the real reasons and God’s answer, they went back to building, and they finished it.
That is what we need to look at. May God prepare our hearts.
Father, thank You again for Your precious Word, these wonderful stories, how You have fossilized Your truth in these histories.
Thank You for Your servants, Haggai and Zechariah, and their openness to hear from heaven, their willingness to share it with those who had been stopped along the way.
We pray, as we look at these precious passages, that You might show us all the real causes of an incomplete temple and the perfect provision in Christ Jesus for those incomplete causes.
May we offer You, even this weekend, temples that are built up and complete, that You might have Your residence here. Work this in us, we pray, in the matchless name of our Lord Jesus. Amen.