The Temple and the Word

THE TEMPLE AND THE WORD 

This is the continuing story of God’s people under Zerubbabel returning home to rebuild the temple that was broken down. This story also includes the later arrival of Ezra upon the scene, returning with up to two thousand more exiles, to be part of the rebuilding, but not of the temple his time, but of the rebuilding of God’s Word into the peoples’ hearts.
There are parallels in this story of Israel experiencing a reset of their place as God’s people in the Earth, and the Church today experiencing a reset as a witness for God in the Earth. Their world had come to a standstill just as the world we live in today is in crisis and has also come to a standstill. However there is no standing still in God’s purpose to rebuild and restore his people and to take them forward into his purposes.

 

God moved the hearts of secular world rulers (Cyrus, Darius, and Artaxerxes moved history for Zerubbabel and Ezra and later Nehemiah) to allow, even encourage and help, the Jewish people to return home. He used these unlikely allies to fulfill His promises of restoration for His people. 
Proverbs 21:1 – “The king's heart is in the hand of the LORD, like the rivers of water; He turns it wherever He wishes.”

 

It was not only in the kings but in the officers, and the mostly indifferent bureaucracy where God moved men’s’ hearts for His purpose.
This is also a time for us to encounter unlikely sources of blessing. This is the wonder of God really working all things together for the good of those who are called by His name. These are times for a new kind of expectation of the unexpected. These are times to acknowledge God’s sovereignty and mercy.

Zerubbabel had now laid the foundation of the temple. But there was no temple and there was no real city, and there were no walls – and that meant they were open to enemy attack, and they had to learn how to deal with that. Stories of the glory of Solomon's temple began to breed discouragement that they could never rebuild this temple as glorious as that one. 
It was now time to rebuild the temple, and the prophets Zechariah and Haggai encouraged Zerubbabel to get on with the work. It took many years to complete the building because there was the continual harassment of the enemies, and as yet there were no walls.

It is God’s heart to see his people dwelling together in unity where his presence resides with them and within their hearts. This is God’s home, his temple made up of people, called ‘living stones’.

The prophet Haggai speaks firmly and soberly to the people about their priorities. They had been preoccupied with giving more meaning to their own personal affairs instead of the will of God as being central for the meaning of their individual and corporate lives. God’s life matters. Here’s what Haggai says;

Haggai 1: 7  Consider your ways says the Lord. Go up to the hills and bring wood and build the house, that I may take pleasure in it and that I may be glorified, says the Lord. You looked for much, and behold, it came to little. And when you brought it home, I blew it away. Why? Declares the Lord of hosts. Because of my house that lies in ruins, while each of you busies himself with his own house.

That rebuke then becomes an encouragement to them that he desires to be with them and will be glorified in them, and that means that their lives will express His life among them in an even greater way than he has in their past history ‘The latter glory of this house shall be greater than the former’. He wanted them to identify as His people, His Nation and not scattered in a foreign land with a foreign culture. They were coming home- their home and His home.
The following Scripture is a powerful encouragement for them then and for us now – It tells them that all nations will be shaken but they will be provided for…
Haggai 2:1 Who is left among you who saw this house in its former glory? How do you see it now? Is it not as nothing in your eyes? Yet now be strong, O Zerubbabel, declares the Lord. Be strong, all you people of the land, declares the Lord. Work, for I am with you, declares the Lord of hosts, according to the covenant that I made with you when you came out of Egypt. My Spirit remains in your midst. Fear not. For thus says the Lord of hosts: Yet once more, in a little while, I will shake the heavens and the earth and the sea and the dry land. And I will shake all nations, so that the treasures of all nations shall come in, and I will fill this house with glory, says the Lord of hosts. The silver is mine, and the gold is mine, declares the Lord of hosts. The latter glory of this house shall be greater than the former, says the Lord of hosts. And in this place I will give peace, declares the Lord of hosts.’

Haggai encourages Zerubbabel that God is with him in this work, just as The Holy Spirit is telling is that he is with us in this critical time – His Spirt is in our midst .God is bringing his people back into a rebuilding of their unity based upon the unity of the faith. The unity of the faith is simply the expression of the life of Christ being lived out individually and corporately wherever we are and whatever the cultural or traditional background we have.

There is a picture of the relational unity among us in the picture of the stones being cut to shpe for the temple.
The stones in the temple had to be shaped. The stabilising wall was made of stones that were cut out and shaped at the rock quarry and brought into place to fit together without any mortar in between, sometimes rubbing the rough edges off each other – just like us in managing our own relationships with each other. God has to do a lot of work upon us, taking us out of one huge rock structure as big as a mountain and fitting us together, so we come out of our rock Christ, and get shaped by the Holy Spirit to take our place next to each other in Christ. That is what God is preparing us for in these days. 

 

He then says ‘The silver is mine, and the gold is mine, declares the Lord of hosts’ so that the treasures of all nations shall come in. That is his message to all the world - that He is the possessor of the Heavens and the Earth, not the nations ruled by dictators who covet the wealth of other nations to wield more corrupt power in their oppression of millions upon millions of people. God is preparing a people who will express his  justice and mercy and blessing.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            As I said before - Haggai Tells Zerubbabel that He will shake the heavens and the earth and the sea and the dry land, and that He will shake all nations. So all of this work of rebuilding his people together to contain and to express his presence is being done in the midst of upheaval all over the world, and that is our experience at this very time. There is a special grace upon this coming together of a living temple. There is a grace for us to be in supportive prayer for one another and the healing of relationships. The Scripture said  He will fill this house with greater glory, the expression of the life of Jesus within. 

And now it is time for the rebuilding of the Word 
After a few years Ezra leads the second of three waves of returning exiles. Even though the temple was being restored and God was with his people it was time for them to be challenged by the Word that would bring personal growth to their lives, because by the time Ezra arrived, the people had again fallen into sin and allowed the values of the godless culture around them (not just the one back in Babylon) to influence their values and corrupt their consciences. Ezra preached God’s word and the people repented. There were close to two thousand people who went up from Babylon to Jerusalem for this mission. 
This next phase in the rebuilding of God’s people coming home was the inner rebuilding of their faith and faithfulness through his Word. This also speaks to us today, to live more deeply but simply in His Word to us. Paul told Timothy to study to sow himself approved, confident that he was correctly dissecting the Word of God (2 Timothy2.15)

Ezra 7:6 -10 Ezra was skilled in the Law of Moses that the Lord, the God of Israel, had given, and the king granted him all that he asked, and he succeeded for the hand of the Lord his God was on him. For Ezra had set his heart to study the Law of the Lord, and to do it and to teach his statutes and rules in Israel.

Ezra received favour from the Persian King’s officers and counsellors so that people of influence were willing to make a way for him to do what God has said, and God also put others who had a heart for God’s Word to be part of Ezra’s vision to see the Word of God renewed in peoples’ hearts. They were described as men of insight and faithfulness and discretion. Again we see God working on the hearts of those who do not know him, for His word to make its way to wherever God sends it  and to do its work and not return empty.

Ezra 7:28 Blessed be the Lord, the God of our fathers, who put such a thing as this into the heart of the king, to beautify the house of the Lord that is in Jerusalem, and who extended to me his steadfast love before the king and his counselors, and before all the king's mighty officers. I took courage, for the hand of the Lord my God was on me, and I gathered leading men from Israel to go up with me.

In Ezra’s words, he declared his faith in God’s protection over him and all that accompanied him.

Ezra 8:22 For I was embarrassed to ask the king for a band of soldiers and horsemen to protect us against the enemy on our way, since we had told the king that the hand of our God is for good on all who seek him, and the power of his wrath is against all who abandon him.” So we fasted and implored our God for this, and he listened to our entreaty. And the gracious hand of our God protected us and saved us from enemies and bandits along the way. So we arrived safely in Jerusalem, where we rested for three days.

So this was a different kind of building that Ezra was asked by God to do. This was a time of the revival of the power of God’s word coming alive in the hearts of His people. This was a time of divine protection from the enemy, and it will be the same for us as we fight a good warfare.
This is a time for us to join ourselves in prayer for all who believe and trust in God, that he will revive the hearts of the humble, and the spirits of those who have been oppressed. pray first that he will revive our hearts with the grace and faith to be the Ezras who make way for God’s Word to flourish in His House, His Home. His temple of living stones – to declare His Word to our world.