SPIRITUAL DIARY For 7/7/2011 9:41:20
AM
My Worship Time Focus: “The rebuilding of the temple Parts 1-3”
Bible Reading
& Meditation Reference: Ezra 2:68-3:13
Message of the verses: “68
Some of the heads of fathers’ households, when they arrived at the house of the
LORD which is in Jerusalem, offered willingly for the house of God to restore
it on its foundation. 69 According to their ability they gave to the treasury for the work 61,000
gold drachmas and 5,000 silver minas and 100 priestly garments. 70 Now the
priests and the Levites, some of the people, the singers, the gatekeepers and
the temple servants lived in their cities, and all Israel in their cities.
“1 Now when the seventh month came, and the
sons of Israel were in the cities, the people gathered together as one man to
Jerusalem. 2 Then Jeshua the son of Jozadak and his brothers the priests, and
Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel and his brothers arose and built the altar of the
God of Israel to offer burnt offerings on it, as it is written in the law of
Moses, the man of God. 3 So they set up the altar on its foundation, for they
were terrified because of the peoples of the lands; and they offered burnt
offerings on it to the LORD, burnt offerings morning and evening. 4 They
celebrated the Feast of Booths, as it is written, and offered the fixed number
of burnt offerings daily, according to the ordinance, as each day required; 5 and
afterward there was a continual burnt offering, also for the new moons and for
all the fixed festivals of the LORD that were consecrated, and from everyone
who offered a freewill offering to the LORD. 6
From the first day of the seventh month they began to offer burnt
offerings to the LORD, but the foundation of the temple of the LORD had not
been laid. 7 Then they gave money to the masons and carpenters, and food, drink
and oil to the Sidonians and to the Tyrians, to bring cedar wood from Lebanon
to the sea at Joppa, according to the permission they had from Cyrus king of
Persia.
“ 8 Now in the second year of their coming
to the house of God at Jerusalem in the second month, Zerubbabel the son of
Shealtiel and Jeshua the son of Jozadak and the rest of their brothers the
priests and the Levites, and all who came from the captivity to Jerusalem,
began the work and appointed the Levites from twenty years and older to oversee
the work of the house of the LORD. 9 Then Jeshua with his sons and brothers
stood united with Kadmiel and his sons, the sons of Judah and the sons of
Henadad with their sons and brothers the Levites, to oversee the workmen in the
temple of God. 10 Now when the builders
had laid the foundation of the temple of the LORD, the priests stood in their
apparel with trumpets, and the Levites, the sons of Asaph, with cymbals, to
praise the LORD according to the directions of King David of Israel. 11 They
sang, praising and giving thanks to the LORD, saying, "For He is good, for
His lovingkindness is upon Israel forever." 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. 12 Yet many of the priests and
Levites and heads of fathers’ households, the old men who had seen the first
temple, wept with a loud voice when the foundation of this house was laid
before their eyes, while many shouted aloud for joy, 13 so that the
people could not distinguish the sound of the shout of joy from the sound of
the weeping of the people, for the people shouted with a loud shout, and the
sound was heard far away.”
There
are three sub-sections under the main point in today’s SD. The first sub-point is entitled “Investing in
the work” and covers the last three verses of Ezra chapter two.
I
have highlighted a portion of verse sixty-nine from of Ezra two and this
portion reminds me of 2Cor. 9:7 “Each
one must do just as he has purposed in his heart, not grudgingly or under
compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.” There is really nothing said about the four
month 900 mile journey that these Jewish people took from Babylon to Jerusalem,
but it seems that when they go to Jerusalem they gave thank offerings to the
Lord for the work of the temple. Now
according to Nehemiah 7:70-72 both the tribal leaders and also Zerubbable game
very generously and this set the example for the others to give. This is another example of why good
leadership is so important, not only in the work of the Lord but in all other
aspects of life.
The
next sub-section is entitled “Setting up the altar” and covers verses 1-3 of
Ezra chapter three.
The
journey that these Jewish people took from Babylon to Jerusalem parallels the
journey that Abraham took when he left that part of the world to travel to the
Promised Land. There are some similar
things that happened. There is nothing
in the Scriptures that speaks of the actually journey itself in either
case. Now the next similarity is what
happens here in this section and that is the offering of a sacrifice on the
altar. Now the altars were different but
the point is that the first thing that both Abraham and these exiles did was
worship the Lord. Jesus spoke of
something similar when giving His sermon on the mount recorded in Matthew 6:33 “But seek first His kingdom and His
righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.”
After
restoring the altar to offer sacrifices on it Joshua (the high priest) then set
up the daily sacrifices and also the offerings on special days and also the
celebration of the different “feast” days.
For a list of these feasts look at the 23rd chapter of
Leviticus where this whole chapter tells all about them, and this also makes a
wonderful study on how these feast days are a picture of the Lord Jesus Christ
and what He accomplished for us.
These
exiles could sacrifice to the Lord even though the temple was not complete yet
for it was not these external things that mattered as much as what was going on
inside their hearts as can be seen in these following verses: (1Sam. 15:22;
Psalm 51:16-17; Hoses 6:6; Mark 12:28-34).
The
last sub-point in Warren Wiersbe’s commentary he calls “Laying the foundation,”
and it covers Ezra 3:7-13.
The
exiles arrived the seventh month but did not begin work on the foundation of
the temple until the second month of the following year, which meant they must
have spent that time gathering supplies to do this work in preparation to
rebuild the temple. This follows the
pattern set by Solomon who started building that temple on the second month. That building of the temple was recorded and
so was an example for the exiles to follow.
When
you look at this picture in a spiritual way one could answer the question that
David asks in Psalm 11:3 “If the
foundations are destroyed, What can the righteous do?” Well they can begin a revival and lay the
foundation again and that is what was going on here as not only the physical
foundation was being laid but there was a spiritual foundation being laid as
well.
One
can see the unity as these exiles began this building, and even though there were
different tasks for them to do they all had the same goal, the finishing of the
temple in order to worship the Lord as they were instructed though the Law of
Moses. The apostle Paul writes something
similar in Philippians 2:2 “make my joy
complete by being of the same mind, maintaining the same love, united in
spirit, intent on one purpose.”
When
the foundation was finished the people began to sing as instructed by King
David. These were the Levites who led
the singing and the worship when the foundation was laid.
After
the foundation was laid there were some older people began to weep because the
temple was smaller than the one Solomon, yet the younger men began to shout
because the task was finished. When one
thinks about it this temple would be there when the Lord Jesus Christ came to
earth and He came into it and taught in it.
Dr.
Wiersbe writes about how these different generations reacted differently after
the foundation was complete: “It’s
unfortunate when the unity of God’s people is shattered because generations
look in opposite directions. The older
men were looking back with longing while the younger men were looking around
with joy. Both of them should be looking
up and praising the Lord for what He had accomplished. We certainly can’t ignore the past, but the past must be a rudder to guide us
and not an anchor to hold us back.
God’s people are a family, not a family album filled with old pictures;
they’re a garden, not a graveyard covered with monuments to past successes.
“We
have similar generational disagreements in the church today, especially when it
comes to styles of worship. Older saints
enjoy singing the traditional hymns with their doctrinal substance, but younger
members of the church want worship that has a more contemporary approach. But it isn’t a question of accepting the one
and rejection the other, unless you want to divide families and split the
church. It’s a matter of balance; the
old must learn from the young and the young from the old, in a spirit of love
and submission (1Peter 5:1-11). When
they were new, many of our traditional hymns were rejected for the same reasons
some people reject contemporary praise choruses today. ‘But each class (the
young and the old) should try to understand the other’s feelings,’ said
Alexander Maclaren. ‘The seniors think the juniors revolutionary and
irreverent; the juniors think the seniors fossils. It is possible to unite the shout of joy and
weeping. Unless a spirit of reverent
regard for the past presides over the progressive movements of this or any day,
they will not lay a solid foundation for the temple of the future. We want the old and the young to work side by
side, if the work is to last and the sanctuary is to be ample enough to embrace
all shades of character and tendencies of thought.’” (Maclaren, Alexander. Expositions of Holy Scripture (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1974 vol. 1, 77)
Spiritual meaning for my life today: What things must take place to have revival
in the heart? Getting back to the foundations
of the Christian life and making sure they’re solid: repentance, confession, prayer, the Word of
God, obedience, and faith.
How
does one get along with the different generations? Dr. Wiersbe writes the following as a
suggestion to the answer for this question:
“For some ‘change’ is a synonym for ‘compromise,’ but where there’s
love, ‘change’ becomes a synonym for ‘cooperation with one another and concern
for one another.’”
When
I first became a believer in January of 1974 I heard something on a tape by a
man named Howard Bell. Bell said the
following “To live above with the saints we love awe that will be glory, but to
live below with the saints we know, well that’s another story.”
My Steps of
Faith for Today:
Begin to follow the steps written above
to bring revival into my life.
7/7/2011 11:51:51 AM
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