Okay, is your sorrow over? You got a little joy? You know.
In all seriousness, you sing that song, and I wonder if you really know what it means: “The redeemed will come on Zion.” Okay? Why is that so joyous? Why is that such a great occasion?
Well, Mount Zion was where the king’s palace was. David’s palace was on Mount Zion. The king was there. All of the authority in heaven and earth rested with the king. He was in full charge and government over all of his people there in Zion.
And not only that, the temple was there: the house of God, with the ark—the very presence of God in Christ—in their midst on Mount Zion.
So, spiritually speaking, Mount Zion is the place where God is. It is the place where the presence of God is, where His authority and power are. That is why the redeemed can come—only the redeemed can come there—unto Mount Zion with joy in our hearts.
I hope the Lord will do a refreshing in our hearts about this matter of coming unto Him, unto Mount Zion. Actually, spiritually speaking, that is what we have been talking about when I have been sharing concerning the house of God. Because in Christ, the king’s palace and the temple, with the presence of the ark in it, are one house.
And whose house are we? Living stones, built together. What a privilege: coming unto Mount Zion.
That is a little background and a little history. Maybe that will help us when we sing that song in the future. And our prayer is that we will come into the full spiritual meaning of that coming to Mount Zion in our midst among us here, because it is a precious thing and a joyous thing.
Well, let me get to the right place here in my notes. Okay, let’s begin with a word of prayer.
Lord, I ask for the anointing this morning, that the Spirit would fill me. I pray not for personal satisfaction, but, Lord, for Your satisfaction.
And that, Lord, You would fill this place, that we could hear Your words and receive Your words and be filled with Your words and empowered by Your words, Lord, and strengthened, and be brought into that place that we can be: that house of God, the king’s palace, and the temple where the ark resides, where the presence of the Lord is pleased to be in our midst.
How we come back to Thee this morning. What a great occupation You have called us to, Lord. Hallelujah. We are thankful, Lord Jesus, for the great, great privilege that we have just to have a simple place in the house of the Lord.
Now we do pray, Lord, that You will bless our time together. Make these words living and real, that, Lord, they will have spiritual value and not just mental assent. We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Well, let’s read some Scriptures. I am going to reread some that we read last week, continuing in the ministry from last week.
Revelation 1:12-13:
And I turned to see the voice that spake with me.
And having turned I saw seven golden candlesticks;
and in the midst of the candlesticks one like unto a son of man.
Then let’s go to Revelation 3:22, summing up His last words to the seven churches:
He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith to the churches.
Then Ezra 1. I am moving too fast there. Okay, Ezra 1. I think probably we will begin with verses 2 through 5.
Ezra 1:2-5:
Thus saith Cyrus king of Persia, The Lord, the God of heaven, hath given me all the kingdoms of the earth; 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.
Then rose up the heads of fathers’ houses of Judah and Benjamin, and the priests, and the Levites, even all whose spirit God had stirred to go up to build the house of the Lord which is in Jerusalem.
Just a very quick review, because I have a lot to share this morning. In this book of Revelation, which is a revelation of Jesus Christ, it is a revelation of His heart—this last letter in the Book that He sends to us. It is His love letter to us, to understand His passion for us.
And then, specifically, we see in this chapter, after the great King is brought before John, he turns and sees this great King. And He is in the midst of the seven churches, and He is looking at His seven churches. Really, He is looking for His bride.
And as He looks, He says, “Well, My bride is not ready.” Here are the various issues that He goes through in those seven churches, the last one being Laodicea, a self-complacent church. But all of the issues had to be dealt with: first love, willingness to suffer, willingness to deal with false doctrines, willingness to return to Him in fullness, and finally, being awakened from their self-satisfied condition.
The queen was not ready. So the Lord, in His passion for her, shares with her what He sees and what needs to be done. And He ends that section with, “He that hath an ear, let him hear.” He is calling out.
He understands, unfortunately, that all of His own whom He has redeemed are not responding. They are not hearing. But He says, “If you do hear, if somehow I have been able to stir up your heart, then overcome these things, that My bride might be ready.”
And in those few who do overcome, I will have what I am looking for. Of course, later on, when we see the New Jerusalem after the millennium period—the thousand-year reign on the earth—there will be full completeness. No one will be left out of that.
But in the meantime, in preparing for the next stage, the kingdom age, when the Lord Jesus will come and reign very soon on this earth in Jerusalem—hallelujah—right now Jerusalem looks like it is in great danger and turmoil and distress, which it is. But one day the King will be there over all the nations, and that will be soon.
History is fixing to change, young people. It is fixing to change. It is about to change. Maybe I should say that. “Fixing to change” is a Southern way of saying it is about to happen, okay?
Well, we see the Lord with His passion for His bride. And last time, what I began to share on was that we have a history in the nation of Israel of the Lord’s passion for His house, for His church, and the Lord’s dealing in getting His bride ready. It is a very wonderful picture.
So we had started on that last week, and we had come to this call of Cyrus. You remember that the Jews, because of their disobedience, had gone into captivity, which Jeremiah the prophet had already prophesied would be a seventy-year period of captivity.
Daniel read this prophecy about two years prior to the seventy years being up, and he began to pray that indeed the Lord’s word would be fulfilled and the people would be released. And He showed him also the prophecy out of Isaiah that had been given 250 years before.
In that prophecy, even before Cyrus was born, even before the people had gone into captivity in Babylon—all before that—the Lord had prophesied that He would raise up a king, and his name was Cyrus. He would overcome all the nations in the Middle East at that time, and the Lord would see to it that he would be the conqueror.
And he was to build a house in Jerusalem. Now Daniel most likely was the one who shared this with the king, once he was a confidant of King Cyrus. King Cyrus was so taken back by the fact that Daniel’s God, the God of Israel, was actually the One in power over him and had brought him into this powerful position, ruling over all these nations.
And out of regard for the God of Israel, he said, “Yes, I will build Him a house.” He puts out this charge to all the Jews, and he says, “You can go back. All who are willing can go back to Jerusalem to build a house for the Lord your God.”
Well, as I shared last time, 42,000 actually returned. It is closer to 50,000 when you count everyone else. But they did return.
Now, interestingly enough, that represented about 4 percent of the Jews in captivity at that time. They had become self-satisfied in their life in Babylon because there they were not persecuted. Like most people taken into captivity and made slaves, they were given liberty to have their own houses and businesses.
And they had synagogues. They could worship God any way they wanted to. But God had said, “Look, the only place that you can sacrifice is in Jerusalem, in the house where I put My name.”
Well, once you take out the sacrifices, you have gutted Christianity. You have gutted the Jewish law and way of worship. But they wanted to do something. This appeased their conscience, so they made these little synagogues and they had all kinds. It was based on their buddies. All their buddies would get together, and the tradesmen would get together in different trades. So the synagogue, of course, was not God’s heart at all.
So when this call went out, they had become self-satisfied with the life that they had with the Lord. Even though they were in captivity, they had adapted pretty well and were successful there. Besides, going back to Jerusalem meant giving up everything—giving up everything—and going back to Jerusalem.
Not only that, there was nothing there. They had to remove all the old rubble, but they also had to live. So they had to have farms, start farms there, and at the same time try to build the house of God. It was a tough life. It was a hard life.
You remember the life of the pioneers trying to cross the mountains to get to the West Coast. Well, it was harder than that. It was a hard, tough life. And they were not prepared to give up the life that they had to really fulfill God’s heart.
Now, this does not mean that they had no regard for God. They did. That is why they had the synagogue. But the Lord’s heart was not really their heart. That is the issue.
Now, what I ended with last week was that God was able to stir up about 4 percent. That is sad in a way, because the call went out to all, but many just said, “Look, this is not my burden. This is not my thing.”
And that is sad. The call went out, and it says, “Whose spirit God had stirred.” Is God able to stir your spirit? Is He able to stir you up to fulfill purposes of His heart—not just fulfill your own life and be self-satisfied with your own things, to come here on Sundays and say, “Okay, I have done my duty. My heart is satisfied”?
God’s heart is not satisfied until His house is built. So the issue I challenged us all with, including my own heart—I want you to know—is this: Have I become self-satisfied? Is the Lord still able to stir my heart?
He was not able to stir the heart of all, but that is a real challenge. Now thankfully, some had come to me and said, “Well, Jerry, I am not sure my heart is stirred, but I want it to be stirred.” Well, praise the Lord. That means your heart is being stirred.
Some said, “Well, is stirring enough?” And I have to say, no, stirring alone is not enough. There needs to be a response. There needs to be the faithfulness of man, to respond as these 4 percent did, these 42,000.
In other words, what I did not mention, but what is very obvious here, is this: on the one hand, with God’s passion for His house, He sovereignly moved on King Cyrus. He sovereignly moved in being able to stir the hearts of some. But it still required that they be faithful to the stirring in their heart. They had to be faithful to what God’s heart was.
The point being, brothers and sisters, if God is going to have His house that He really wants, He will move sovereignly. He will build His house. But there need to be faithful men and women, faithful to God’s heart, faithful to His purpose, for it to come into reality.
And so that is where we are for today. I have already taken twenty minutes. I am sorry.
Well, the decree went out. Thank God, 42,000 of their hearts were stirred—really closer to 50,000. And, interestingly enough, Zerubbabel, it says, is the one that led them out.
That is really encouraging to me, young folks and younger men and women. Since I am very close to seventy now, I finally have gotten to the place where I consider myself older, and most of you folks here younger.
Zerubbabel was a young man. He was born in captivity. He was not taken captive and brought there; he was a young man. And he was a prince, the grandson of Jehoiachin. He was born in captivity.
Being of royalty, he was with Daniel and some of the others. Most likely, once again, we see God’s hand in having Daniel there. It was probably Daniel who shared with this young man what God had shown him concerning the house of God and how much it was God’s heart to have a house.
And thank the Lord, He was able to stir this young man’s heart. He had never seen the former temple, and he did not know. All he knew was what had been shared with him out of the Word and through Daniel, but his heart was stirred. The Holy Spirit basically moved upon this young man, and he was the one that led them back. He was their leader.
God was able to touch this young man’s heart and stir him up, and he responded. We are so thankful that He was able to get a younger generation ready to go back and serve His house.
So, younger generations here, this is not something just for the old guy or the ones of us who were here in the very beginning. It was a marvelous beginning, I tell you that, and it is marvelous. But that will not be repeated. The Lord is moving on with us.
And I call upon the younger generations that they might allow the heart of God to stir their hearts with these things and these matters, and not be satisfied with just living a casual Christian life, but one dedicated to God’s heart and God’s purpose. Well, that is the challenge.
Interestingly enough, the first thing they did when they returned was they set up an altar. It says, because of their enemies, they set up an altar. You can spend a whole message on this matter, but basically it says this: without the altar, there is no house.
If you are going to have the house of God, build the house of God, be involved in the house of God, there must be the altar. Now today, the spiritual representation of the altar—or what the altar represents—is the cross working in your life personally.
And what does the cross do? Fundamentally, the cross, if it is working in your life, eliminates your flesh—your fleshly ideas, your fleshly strength, your fleshly ways—and it allows the Lord’s strength and the Lord’s way to come in.
That is why the house cannot be built without it. It takes the cross, the working of the cross, in all of our lives. Because when we come together, unfortunately, what we bring is not only the life of the Lord, but we have the flesh still there. So we have to allow the cross to work in our lives.
And brothers and sisters, if the cross is working, there are dealings—sometimes very deep and serious dealings. He is working with us, but it is all with a purpose.
Sometimes we go through these deep, hard things in the Lord, and we wonder, “Lord, what are You doing? I feel like I am being destroyed.” The Lord says, “No, I am not destroying you. I am destroying the flesh, that My Spirit might be alive and real in you and be the strength of your life. My Spirit, My life, might be expressed in the house of God.”
So that is what He is doing in our lives. That is the sense of the altar. So they had the altar there. Plus, the altar is the great defense against the enemy: the blood of Jesus Christ.
When the enemy comes to accuse you in your life, you can stand on the blood of Christ. He can come and say, “You have done this. You have done that. You are a sinner. How in the world can you offer anything in the assembly?”
You should be able to say, “It is true. I am nothing, but the Lord is everything, and He shed His blood for me. My sins are under the blood of Christ, and they are gone and forgotten forever. Therefore, do not bother me with these things again.”
Do you see the importance of the cross and the work of the cross in your life? Not only does it take care of your sins, but it is your defense against the adversary in your life, because he will bring you down unless you are willing to stand on what Christ has made available to you at Calvary’s cross.
Well, they started out. They started their farms, they started their homes, and they started building the house. They were laying the foundation. And after two years, they laid the foundation. They were excited. They had a little celebration.
It said that the old men cried and the young men rejoiced. Well, the old men cried because they had seen the glory of the old temple, so big and marvelous. This new one that they were building was quite small by comparison. The foundation was much simpler, so to speak.
But for the young ones, oh, it was new. It was a foundation. It was that foundation of Christ. Remember the words: “Despise not the day of small things.”
The Lord says, “Where two or three are gathered in My name,” really standing for My purpose and My heart, following Me, the foundation is there. Okay? Do not despise the day of small things.
Well, unfortunately, the enemy immediately goes to work. Now, if you read these things, you get mixed up with all the kings that are involved. But actually, there are six kings involved from the time of Cyrus until Nehemiah goes back under Artaxerxes. There are six kings, so it gets a little confusing as you read it.
But Cyrus had given the order to go back, and during this time, not long after that, he died—actually, I think he died in a battle. His son took over.
The enemies of the people in Jerusalem were really stirred up, and they said, “You cannot do this.” So they wrote off a letter to the king, who was no longer Cyrus but his son. They said, “Look, if you will check into the history of Jerusalem, you will see that they had great kings at times, they ruled other nations, and they are rebellious people.”
Well, they looked into the records and found this to be true, and they were sent a stop-work order. Now Kenny knows what a stop-work order is. If we go out to the job site—we are structural engineers—and they have built the structure wrongly, if they have not put in the correct amount of steel, we give them a stop-work order, and they cannot work anymore.
It makes them mad, but they have done something wrong, and until it gets corrected, we cannot build any further. So they were given a stop-work order by the king, and they stopped for fourteen years.
The enemy was able to stop them. They had been overwhelmed. I mean, they were working hard, all trying to take care of their families, and all of a sudden they get all these legal court cases. Today it would be legal court cases.
You send a stop-work order, so you go to court to try to undo it. You cannot get it undone, and you are back and forth. And you say, “Look, I am just going to go back and build my house. I am going to go back and plant my fields. What else can I do?”
Well, fourteen years. The Lord is patient. And then He raises up, sovereignly, Haggai and Zechariah, His prophets. They speak to the people.
And Haggai says, “The Lord says to you, ‘Consider your ways.’” Brothers and sisters, we do need to do that, do we not? When it concerns God’s heart and God’s house, how do we fit in? We need to consider our ways.
They had returned to their houses, and they were challenged. He says, “You are building your wainscoted houses.” You know what wainscoting is? That is what I currently have in my bathroom, by the way. So, wainscoted—it is that beadboard around the bottom. In other words, you are making it fancier.
In other words, all their efforts were going into their own families and their own lives. God’s house was being laid waste and forgotten, and they were concentrating on just taking care of their families and building their houses—not just a house to accommodate living, but a fancy house.
The Lord said, “What are you doing? You need to consider it. That is not your purpose for coming here, was it?” Brothers and sisters, these are the 4 percent, okay? These are the 4 percent that originally came out and said, “Lord, we want to build Your house.”
In those early days, that is what the Lord challenged us with. After meeting for a couple of years, we really felt we wanted to be the testimony of the Lord, to really have a house for the Lord. And the enemy has been on the attack ever since.
Well, fourteen years, and the Lord raises up Haggai, and he shares this message: “Consider your ways.” We need to do that. We need to consider, where do we fit into this? “Lord Jesus, I need to be about Your business, not just my business.”
The Lord said, “I need to be your priority. You thought I was your priority. You came out at My call, and you responded, and you thought I was your priority. But what has happened is I am no longer your priority. My purpose is no longer your priority. It has become number two.”
As a matter of fact, I am not even sure it is number two, because nothing is being done. Now the people could have responded and said, “Hey, you know, we have a lawsuit, I guess.” Haggai said, “No, it does not matter. Build the house of God.”
So they started. They started building the house of God once again. Praise the Lord. They responded.
It is interesting. After about three months, the Lord, through Zechariah, speaks a word to them. He says, “Return unto Me, and I will return unto you.”
Well, what is going on? The people had had their hearts stirred. They had responded. They were back building the house of God, and yet the Lord comes to them and says, “Look, you need to return unto Me, and I will return unto you.” What is happening?
The Lord saw their hearts, brothers and sisters. They were stirred up. They were moving back in the right direction, but He realized something: their hearts were not fully in it. He knew that soon their hearts would depart.
The problem was that although they had been stirred up by this word to build His house, they had not fully come back to give their hearts to Him. You cannot build My house unless I have your heart. That is the word.
You have to give your heart fully to Me—not just three quarters, not just nine tenths, not 99.9 percent pure. I want 100. I want your heart and your soul.
Now, brothers and sisters, that is quite a demand, but that is the Lord’s demand. And so He said, “Look, you need to return to Me. You need to really get your heart back solid and steady with Me, or you will not continue to build.”
Well, thank the Lord, they did return. They did give their hearts back to the Lord. And Zechariah gives them this word. I mean, it was a daunting task, brothers and sisters.
Even though they had returned, their hearts had been challenged, they had responded, and they were building that house, it was a daunting task. They still had to keep their family life going. They still had to put food on the table. They had all this rubble to deal with, and then they had to actually build upon this foundation. It was a hard, difficult life.
And so Zechariah gave them a word:
Not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit, saith the Lord of hosts.
In other words, the Spirit of God will see to it that there is grace to do this. As long as we are trusting in the grace and the Spirit of God to move in our lives, all of these issues and problems we have, brothers and sisters, He has promised to take care of them.
It does not mean they go away, because they still had a difficult life. But the grace was now there for them to build with joy in their hearts.
Brothers and sisters, thank God, they repented of all of this, and the house was built in four years. We have gone through about twenty years of history of those that returned.
Then the enemy decided on a plan to get rid of this remnant. The way he was going to do it was to get rid of all the Jews. That brings us to the book of Esther.
Esther actually fits historically between Ezra and Nehemiah. What happened is King Xerxes is now on the throne. Some of you young people who know your history will remember that King Xerxes was a mighty king who built a tremendous army.
He wanted to invade Greece, so he had this, I think, 180-day gathering of all the nobles and princes in Persia from all the various regions to come. What he was doing was getting them ready and preparing them to invade Greece. He had to get all the political powers behind him, of course, and all the people behind him.
So he had this great party. On the last day of the party, of course, it became a drunken orgy, basically. He called his queen, Vashti, to come in.
Vashti would not do it. She was indignant. She said, “No, I am not coming to that thing. I am not going to expose myself to all of that.” She was right. But the king, of course, was angry, and he disposed her from being queen at the advice of his counselors.
They said, “Look, you cannot let this queen do this to you. If you do, all of our wives will rebel. We will have a real tough time.” So anyway, political pressure. He submits, and he disposes of Queen Vashti.
Now actually, the Lord’s hand is in all of this. They said, “We will get you a new queen.” So they started searching the land, and Esther was one of the ones picked out to become his wife and perhaps the queen.
Mordecai was her older cousin, who was taking care of her because her parents had died. Mordecai said, “Look, whatever you do, do not let them know you are a Jew.”
Mordecai had a small place in the government there. He sat in the gate where business was done. The Lord was working through all of this, though the enemies were greatly at work.
King Xerxes goes off to fight the Greek war that he starts. Now, you young people might remember this: what is the battle with Sparta? Where was that? Thermopylae, right. All right, we have some people. You get an A.
What happened was he takes his troops out, and he has the ten thousand Immortals with him. Ten thousand troops. In other words, the Immortals were the elite warriors of Persia—hardened warriors. They were the best. Ten thousand, plus there were about another fifty thousand warriors with him.
And at Thermopylae, he is challenged by Leonidas, the leader of the Spartans. They get in this narrow pass, and he holds them off, I think, three or four days—actually, I think three days. It was because one of the traitors showed them another way around that they were able to defeat him.
But he held them up long enough that the rest of the Greek army could escape and get away from Athens. Eventually, his navy is defeated at the Battle of Salamis, and he returns about four years later in defeat.
He gets back, and now he starts thinking, “Well, I need a queen. I need my wife.” So they start bringing the ladies who had been prepared before him. It is a long history, but it shows God’s providence, what God is doing.
And he chooses Esther to be his queen. What a place. Now, he does not know at this point that she is Jewish.
Well, he also has appointed a guy named Haman. He is probably the forerunner of Hitler, when you think about it.
Haman was made second in command in the kingdom, and the king had given the order that when he came by, people had to bow down to him. Well, he was an Amalekite. If you remember the history of the Amalekites, God hated the Amalekites. They were always against the nation of Israel, and they represent our flesh, frankly.
You can never bow down to the flesh. So when Haman would come by at the gate, Mordecai would not bow. This really got Haman angry. “Who is this guy? He will not bow down.” Of course, he was a proud man.
So he thought about it, and he said, “I am going to see to it that I take this little fellow out.” He finds out he is a Jew, so he decides, “I will just kill all the Jews.”
He goes to the king and says, “Look, there are some people here that are rebellious and they are against the king. If you let me take them out, I will give you ten thousand talents.” It was money, a lot of money. The king said, “Well, you have the money, you have the power. Do it.”
So the edict goes out that on a certain day, the fifteenth of something, anybody who saw a Jew could kill them and take their goods and their property, and it would be theirs.
You see what the enemy is doing? This affected not only the ones who had remained, but all the Jews throughout the kingdom, which included the remnant that had gone back to build the house of God.
You see the enemy’s great plan now: to destroy all the Jews, that there would be no possibility of a testimony to God on this earth at all. He was going to wipe them all out, and he was going to use Haman to do it.
So Mordecai goes to the queen, and he says, “Look, you need to help out your people.” She said, “Well, what is going on?” She did not know. He said, “Look, you need to go in to the king, or else we will all be destroyed.”
She said, “Well, I cannot do it, because if I just walk into his presence, he will have me killed. He has to request me first.” He said, “Look, you are going to have to do it.” She said, “Okay, I will. Send out word for three days of fasting, and then I will do it.”
And they did. So she went before the king, and he received her. God’s providence. He said, “What would you want?” She said, “I would like to have a dinner with you and Haman.”
He was glad to do it. Haman was extremely excited because he was personally being invited to the queen’s dinner. On the way out, he passes by who? Mordecai. Mordecai does not bow down. He gets so angry.
Some of his advisers said, “Why do you not just build a gallows for this guy and hang him? Go to the king when you see him at this party and ask him if you can hang Mordecai.” He said, “That sounds like a good idea.” So he had them build a gallows for Mordecai.
The next morning he heads back to the king’s palace. Well, guess what? The king, that night before, could not sleep. You think the Lord might have something to do with that? He could not sleep.
So he goes to his chamberlains and says, “Look, bring me the chronicles, some of the history of our nation.” Now, I do not know who would want to do that, but obviously the Lord was in it. Who would want to read all the records of what had happened?
Well, he could not sleep, so they started reading it to him. They came to this little thing: Mordecai had reported that two of the king’s chamberlains had set a plot to kill him. This had happened earlier on.
Mordecai had passed that on to Queen Esther, and she had told the king. Sure enough, he found out that there was a plot against his life, and he had them dealt with.
So he asked, “What did I do for Mordecai?” They said, “You did not do anything.” He said, “Well, this cannot be. I need to reward him.”
So Haman comes into the king’s chamber, and the king says, “Look, what would you do if you wanted to honor someone?” Haman said, “It has got to be me. I am the one he wants to honor.”
He said, “I think you ought to put the king’s crown on his head and the king’s robe on him, put him on the king’s horse, march him through town, and have everybody bow down to him.” The king said, “That is an excellent idea. Do it for Mordecai.”
Well, Haman is saying, “Whoa. I am ready to kill this guy.” He was so disappointed. I think maybe the king probably picked up some of Haman’s desire for power when he suggested that the king’s crown and robe be put on this man and that he be put on the king’s horse and have everybody bow down to him.
Anyway, the queen has the dinner. She says, “I have something on my heart I want to share with you.” The king says, “Well, go ahead.” Of course, Haman is there as well.
She says, “This is the man that wants to kill all of my people in the land.” The king says, “Really?” She says, “Yes.” He says, “Who is this man?” She points to Haman: “That man there.”
Haman is undone. “What?” “Yes, he has put out an edict that all the Jews should be killed.” The king becomes furious and goes out into the garden.
In the meantime, Haman is down on his knees before Queen Esther, trying to convince her not to do this, to do something, or the king might kill him. Back comes the king in, and he sees him there. He says, “Now he is trying to seduce my queen. Off with his head.”
So they start taking him out. One of the chamberlains happened to mention to the king, “Hey, you know, he actually built a gallows for Mordecai.” He said, “Hang him on those gallows.”
So Haman is hung upon the gallows. The Jews are saved from annihilation. The remnant is saved from annihilation.
Brothers and sisters, I want to share with you that the adversary we have concerning building a house for God is angry. He is ferocious. He will go to any extent to wipe out any testimony of Jesus on this earth.
That is why six million Jews were exterminated under Hitler. And he has been after the church from the time it was born on Pentecost, to destroy it.
Any time there is something of a coming together of God’s people for the purpose of building His house, of being one people together, united together, with Him as the Head, and joined together because of the Holy Spirit and the blood of Christ, he hates it.
His main object was to get rid of the remnant, brothers and sisters. There were those who were left behind, and he used it, but he was going after the remnant.
But thank the Lord, in His providence and His sovereignty, He had put Esther in the place she was, and Mordecai. They served the Lord where they were.
Now you might say, “Well, why were they not in Jerusalem?” Well, she was not even born when the first call went back under Zerubbabel, and Mordecai was just a very young lad, probably still under his parents, who stayed.
So the Lord raised them up in that situation to save the people, to save His testimony, to save the remnant that had gone back to build His house. Well, quite a history. Quite a history.
Well, forty years after—it was just about twenty years at this point—forty years after that, Ezra. Oh man, Ezra.
If I can shorten all of this: Ezra was back in Jerusalem. He was a scribe, well taught. The king now was Artaxerxes—the son of Xerxes. He was in favor with the king.
He went to the king and said, “It is really on my heart. I am a scribe in the word of God. I need to go back. I have gotten word that the people are in distress there.”
“The temple service has really gone down. The sacrifices are not being made. Things are desperate there. Even though the house has been built, the service in the house of God is weak. Some of the people are intermarrying. The purity among the people has declined, and I need to go back and help.”
You see, brothers and sisters, the remnant is not perfect. They are flawed. But God never gives up. He keeps stirring, and He stirs Ezra’s heart. Two thousand go back with Ezra to help strengthen the service in God’s house and to return the people back to purity under Christ.
Part of what had happened was that the taxes were pretty heavy under this king, and the Levites could no longer serve in the house and do the sacrifices because they had to farm and take care of their families.
Ezra mentioned this to the king, and he said, “Okay. I will no longer tax your Levites and the people that serve in your house. I will actually provide some additional funds if needed.”
And so he goes back. The Lord has finally moved once again through a Gentile, okay, and through one of His own, Ezra, who had a heart for the house of God. He goes back, and basically he is able to strengthen the house of God.
He stirs up the people and says, “Look, you need to return to serve the house of God, to be a viable service in the house of God. That means making your offering in the house of God, offering yourselves to serve the Lord in the house of God, that you be active in service in the house of God.”
And God will take care of you and your needs.
They also had to undo all the marriages. Now, that is interesting. They intermarried, and they said, “You are going to have to put away the wives that you have married from the foreign lands and their children.”
Now you think of that. That is a pretty tough thing to do. It almost sounds like an unfair demand. But they were not supposed to intermarry in the first place. It was against God’s will for them to do that. It affected the testimony of God. He wanted a pure testimony.
Brothers and sisters, what does this represent to us spiritually? It represents having other loves besides Christ—other loves that draw us away from the Lord.
It could be love of anything. It can be love of a person, love of your business, love of your children. It could be all kinds of loves—things that are very difficult to deal with.
But they are loves that draw you away from the full purpose of God and from serving God in His house: being able to come and offer at the Lord’s table, to have something from the Lord and say, “Lord, this is my offering.”
It may be a prayer. It may be a song. But you have something because you have been before the Lord. You have been exercised. You are a servant in the house of God. You are a Levite today. You are a priest, and we have been called to that.
We have been called to a life of purity. Are we willing to separate ourselves from the world and its ways, from the other loves that we have? It does not mean that we cannot love other things. It means they cannot be primary and take the place of the Lord. Okay?
So praise the Lord. They did repent. They did return. The service of the house was restored in fullness.
Things go along. Now, thirteen years after Ezra’s return, Nehemiah gets word. He is in the king’s palace; he is the cupbearer. He gets word that the people are once again in great affliction.
The kings and nobles there have taken some of the others and made them their personal slaves because they could not meet their taxes. They paid it for them, and they became their slaves. People have been put into slavery among their own, and there are real problems there.
The wall is broken down. The enemy can just walk right in. Yes, the house is there, and the altar is still there, and the service is going on, but it is weak. There are real problems, and the city life is almost nonexistent. The fellowship together is almost nonexistent.
So Nehemiah returns to the people. He searches it out, and he goes back and reports to all the kings there: “Look, we are in great distress. You do not even realize it.”
“You do not realize your condition, but the wall is down. The gates are burned. The enemy can walk right in. There is no testimony. The wall represents the testimony to the world. It represents separation from the ways of the world.”
And brothers and sisters, the wall in our lives can easily be torn down by simply going the way of the world and trying to bring it into the church.
Well, Nehemiah awakens them. Brothers and sisters, thank God, they are stirred once again. The sovereignty of God, but man has to be responsible. When those two go together, things happen.
And the wall was built in fifty-two days. Quite an accomplishment. But do you remember—well, you may not have read the story in a long time—there was tremendous opposition once again.
The enemies ridiculed them. They said, “You think you can build this wall? Nothing. We can just come in and take you any time we want.”
Then within their own midst, with Sanballat and Tobiah and Geshem, there were those who were not Jewish, but they were in among them. In fact, Tobiah had a place right in the house of God.
Not God’s people at all, and he was causing real problems. He had made an alliance with one of the nobles there. Nehemiah had a hard time.
When they started building the wall, some of the nobles said, “Look, you know, that is not for me.” And he said, “Oh yes, it is.” Interestingly enough, if you read it, it says he took Tobiah by the hair and threw him out. He cleaned it. He cleaned the house.
He got it back on the right ground. They had intermarried again, and he once again had to straighten that out. But praise the Lord, once again the people did respond.
Now, I think that is a good summary there. I want to end with this this morning: Nehemiah 10.
Nehemiah 10:29, and then the end of verse 39. This was after they had built the wall.
They clave to their brethren, their nobles, and entered into a curse—so it was really a contract—and into an oath to walk in God’s law, which was given by Moses the servant of God, and to observe all the commandments of the Lord their God, and His judgments and statutes.
Just to give you a few examples: they would not give their daughters to the people any longer. They would observe the Sabbath day. They would provide funds and ministering to the house of God, that there might be showbread, that there might be wood for the sacrifice.
They said, “We will once again offer our firstfruits, our best, to the Lord.” And they signed it. They did not just say it. All of them came and signed this covenant.
And in verse 39, they ended with this very last sentence:
We will not forsake the house of our God.
“We will not forsake the house of our God.” I think that is the message.
Brothers and sisters, many are called, but few are chosen. We are all called, but unfortunately only a few tend to respond. God moves sovereignly to stir our hearts, but it requires our faithfulness to His call for Him to have a house.
All should receive the burden, but not all do. We should be willing to pay the price. It is not easy. It is not easy, brothers and sisters.
To serve the house of God, take care of your family, prepare and be ready to strengthen your brothers and sisters in times of worship, in our Bible studies, in our personal lives when one is sick or hurting or needs counsel, or just somebody saying, “You know, I am praying. I really am.”
We need that: to strengthen one another by serving one another in the house of the Lord.
We cannot just live for our own interests. If we really love the Lord, we will live for His interest and His purpose. We cannot forget His house. We cannot become self-satisfied.
We must have our hearts stirred, consider our ways, return unto Him, and He will return unto us. Join together with one heart, one mind. Return to purity in our lives, that we might be able to serve God in His house.
And brothers and sisters, let me end with this one other thought. We have had quite a history here.
Last time I mentioned those early days. Kenny and I came together, and a few others. The Lord showed us something of His purpose and His heart, and we said, “Yes, Lord, we want that. Size does not matter. We just want to have You as Head. We want You to have a testimony on this earth.”
We know there are others, and we know there are other brothers and sisters out there that really love You, Lord, but You have called us to this. You have called us to build Your house. And Lord, that is what we want to set out to do.
Now, brothers and sisters, it was glorious. We are the old men now. We remember the former days, but they are past.
We have had some tremendous warfare. The year 2000, the enemy set out to totally destroy the testimony here, to wipe us all out, to wipe this testimony out of Richmond. He almost succeeded.
For those who were here, you remember. It has been very difficult ever since. As a matter of fact, it has been thirteen years now. I have to say, I do not think the work stopped totally, but it sure was greatly affected.
I am just saying, I really think it is time that we come back together as one people with one heart, with a covenant together that we will not forsake the house of the Lord.
We may fail, but the Lord will not. The Lord is still willing to stir our hearts, brothers and sisters. We should still be willing to go on with Him.
I think of the conference coming up. Can we do this as one people and not just a few?
You know, the conference—we never have intended it to be something in itself. It is really a part of the testimony here, because the Lord told us in those early days that He desired a vehicle to get out His concern for His house.
His purpose, His eternal purpose, might be shared with all of His people. And we became the instrument, with that being a part of our service to the house of God.
And if the Lord says to stop, we will. But we have been called to go on. Now these are the last days.
When that website comes up shortly, you will see something of our burden in that website. That burden is that God might be able to call His people together in these last days and prepare a people that will be able to pray the Lord back.
It will be able to stand for the Lord’s purpose, to build His house, to prepare that queen to serve with Him in the kingdom age. And that is our heart.
May the Lord enable us to take action. As our brother shared with me last week, it is not good enough to be stirred. We have to take action. I think Brother Steve might have something to share with us next week on that.
Lord, we come back to You today. Lord, I just thank You for Your faithfulness.
Lord, as I see in the history, Your people pull back time and time again, but You remain faithful to continue to stir them, to bring them back to Your heart, to Your purpose.
Lord, we are thankful. It is Your sovereign hand that we look to. But Lord, You need a faithful man. You need those faithful to Your call.
Now, Lord, we cannot be faithful unless You really fill us with Your Holy Spirit, really touch our hearts, not only move us, Lord, but cause us to take action, to be true servants in the house of God, to be one people building that wall together.
Lord Jesus, I am just reminded that they had to carry a spear in one hand and work with the other because of the enemy. Lord, we have a great enemy. He has not given up.
But Lord, You have said You will build Your house, and the gates of hell will not prevail. We stand on Your word today, in Jesus’ name. Amen.