We are a little over halfway in our study of the book of Ezra. The first six chapters covered a period of roughly eighty years of history from the time of the first exiles returning to rebuild the temple in Jerusalem to the day when Ezra actually steps onto the scene in Jerusalem.
It is a story about rebuilding, restoring, reforming, and establishing the family of God after seventy years of living in captivity amidst the rubble and the devastation of the consequences of sin and rebellion. Seventy years of captivity and then eighty years of rebuilding the temple climaxes into the end of chapter six where God’s family joyfully celebrated the Passover before Ezra arrived in chapter seven. Look at the text with me…
EZRA 7:11 – 28
11This is a copy of the letter that King Artaxerxes gave to Ezra the priest, the scribe, a man learned in matters of the commandments of the Lord and his statutes for Israel: 12“Artaxerxes, king of kings, to Ezra the priest, the scribe of the Law of the God of heaven. Peace. And now 13I make a decree that anyone of the people of Israel or their priests or Levites in my kingdom, who freely offers to go to Jerusalem, may go with you. 14For you are sent by the king and his seven counselors to make inquiries about Judah and Jerusalem according to the Law of your God, which is in your hand, 15 and also to carry the silver and gold that the king and his counselors have freely offered to the God of Israel, whose dwelling is in Jerusalem, 16with all the silver and gold that you shall find in the whole province of Babylonia, and with the freewill offerings of the people and the priests, vowed willingly for the house of their God that is in Jerusalem. 17With this money, then, you shall with all diligence by bulls, rams, and lambs, with their grain offerings and their drink offerings, and you shall offer them on the altar of the house of your God that is in Jerusalem. 18Whatever seems good to you and your brothers to do with the rest of the silver and gold, you may do, according to the will of your God. 19The vessels that have been given you for the service of the house of your God, you shall deliver before the God of Jerusalem. 20And whatever else is required for the house of your God, which it falls to you to provide, you may provide it out of the king’s treasury.
21And I, Artaxerxes the king, make a decree to all the treasurers in the province Beyond the River: Whatever Ezra the priest, the scribe of the Law of the God of heaven, requires of you, let it be done with all diligence, 22up to 100 talents of silver, 100 cors of wheat, 100 baths of wine, 100 baths of oil, and salt without prescribing how much. 23Whatever is decreed by the God of heaven, let it be done in full for the house of the God of heaven, lest his wrath be against the realm of the king and his sons. 24We also notify you that it shall not be lawful to impose tribute, custom, or toll on anyone of the priests, the Levites, the singers, the doorkeepers, the temple servants, or other servants of this house of God.
25And you, Ezra, according to the wisdom of your God that is in your hand, appoint magistrates and judges who may judge all the people in the province Beyond the River, all such as knows the laws of your God. And those who do not know them, you shall teach. 26Whoever will not obey the law of your God and the law of the king, let judgment be strictly executed on him, whether for death or for banishment or for confiscation of his goods or for imprisonment.”
27Blessed 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, 28and 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. – This is the Word of God for the people of God. Let’s pray…
The day when Ezra shows up in Jerusalem, that was a day to remember because of the kind of man that Ezra was. Ezra was a man with an awesome spiritual lineage, he was a man of political influence and courage, he was a man of endurance, he was a man of God, and he was a man of God’s Word. It has been said that your reputation is the story of your character and Ezra’s reputation reveals that he was a man of significant character.
And as we noticed last week, Ezra was just a man who eventually died, but he was a man who nevertheless, points us to the most important man in all of history; that man is none other than Jesus Christ. All of Scripture is meant to point us to Jesus because ultimately, he is the only one who rebuilds, and restores, and reforms and establishes the family of God in the midst of the ash heaps of the presence, the power, and the penalty of our sin and rebellion. Jesus is the true King of kings!
And knowing that Jesus is the true King of kings that all of Scripture points us to makes it really easy to read the text in front of us with Jesus in view. The text in front of us is a letter from the Persian king, the ruling political authority in Ezra’s day. The letter simply describes the king’s generous investment in the kingdom of God; it also describes the protection that the king extends to Ezra along with his provision of authority to reinstate the teaching of God’s Word and the freedom to recruit a team to do the work of reforming and establishing God’s family in accordance with God’s Word.
This letter from the king of Persia is really a letter about provision. But make no mistake about it, behind this human Persian king, is the hand and the voice of the King of kings who has promised to provide everything we need to rebuild, to restore, to reform, and to establish his kingdom here on this earth. God is the one who ultimately provides everything needed to advance his kingdom against the gates of hell!
#1: GOD PROVIDES FAVOR WITH HUMAN AUTHORITIES (VV. 11 – 14)
The opening words of this letter from the king of Persia, shows us that God has moved in a powerful way on this pagan king’s heart. God has moved so powerfully that this pagan king makes a decree that gives Ezra full authority to gather a ministry team and to take the Word of God that is in his hand and to minister among the exiles who had returned to Jerusalem. Can you imagine being sent by a pagan king to minister the Word of God among a group of people? This is what it looks like when God provides favor with human authorities!
#2: GOD PROVIDES FINANCES AND RESOURCES FOR THE MISSION (VV. 15 – 23)
It is crazy to think that a pagan king would generously invest in rebuilding, restoring, reforming, and establishing the kingdom of God in Jerusalem. But that is exactly what happens here. It is not hard to see that the Persian king trusted Ezra with the responsibility of taking the letter he wrote as his marching orders to carefully deliver all of the finances and all of the resources needed to continue the community reform in Jerusalem. This story of the provision of finances and resources almost has the feel of a blank government check written all over it. The king gives more than enough to underwrite the entire project, and when you read the king’s final words in verse twenty three where he says “Whatever is decreed by the God of heaven, let it be done in full for the house of the God of heaven, lest his wrath be against the realm of the king and his sons” (v. 23), this sounds like a serious blank check to me! God is providing all the finances and resources needed for ministry in Jerusalem.
#3: GOD PROVIDES PROTECTION (V. 24)
When the king of Persia wrote this letter, he saw fit to restrict anyone from messing with Ezra and his traveling band of ministers. He makes an intentional point of notifying everyone that it will “not be lawful to impose tribute, custom, or toll on anyone of the priests, the Levites, the singers, the doorkeepers, the temple servants, or other servants of this house of God” (v. 24). This simply means that anyone who was considered to be part of Ezra’s ministry team was not to be messed with and was not to be held liable for any kind of kingdom taxes. The Persian empire was declaring Ezra and his ministry team to be tax exempt. So not only did Ezra and his team have a blank check to beautify and fill the temple with resources but they also had the blessing of not being required to pay national taxes. In short, God is providing all the means necessary to do the work of ministry and to make a decent wage while doing it without fear of blowback from the tax collectors.
#4: GOD PROVIDES HIS WORD (VV. 25 – 26)
The letter from king Artaxerxes gives Ezra the political authority to teach and to enforce God’s Law in the community of Israel. For all the importance of the separation of church and state, this is one of those clear instances where it is obvious that God is opening the floodgates of heaven with the provision of his Word through a pagan king. The king literally instructs Ezra to take God’s Word in his hand and appoint leaders throughout the region in Jerusalem and to teach God’s Word to anyone who does not know it and to reinstate the civil, ceremonial, and moral laws of God in the community. God’s Word is to be at the center of restoringn, rebuilding, reforming, and establishing the family of God. No other political policy will suffice for the spiritual work that is about to be done among God’s people.
#5: GOD PROVIDES HIS LOVING PRESENCE (VV. 27 – 28)
When I think about all of God’s provision for Israel in this letter (credentials, finances, resources, protection, his Word) I think about the provision of his loving presence and when I think about God’s loving presence, I feel like I could do anything; like I could weather any kind of storm or face any kind of enemy without wavering. I think Ezra felt the same thing and I think this is why he writes “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 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” (vv. 27 – 28). God provides his loving presence, and it gives Ezra great courage for the journey ahead.
#6: GOD PROVIDES A MISSIONAL COMMUNITY (V. 28)
There is nothing better than being part of a family or a team that is united around a vision of restoring, rebuilding, reforming, and establishing an outpost of the kingdom of God here on earth. This is what it means to be part of a missional community, to be a family that is laser focused on seeing the presence of God brought into the ash heap of the consequences of sin. The final words of this letter from the king, resulted in Ezra gathering a team of “leading men from Israel to go up with me” (v. 28) to do the work of restoring, rebuilding, reforming, and establishing the presence of God among the people of God. One of the things that I love about God is that he does not call us to walk the road of gospel ministry all alone. God provides other people to link arms with in the messy trenches of gospel ministry.
CONCLUSION…
When I survey all of the ways that God provided for Ezra in his ministry of restoring, rebuilding, reforming, and establishing the kingdom of God in Jerusalem, I think about all the ways he has provided for us today. God provided finances, resources, protection, his Word, his loving presence, and a missional community for Ezra. Do we not have a better letter from the King of kings? Has he not provided more for us in the crucified, risen and returning Christ?
In Christ we have something that worth far more than rubies or gold; even if I am low on finances and resources, I can be encouraged with the truth that Jesus belongs to me, and I belong to him. What about protection? How many of us in this place will face the threat of physical danger for the sake of the gospel? But even if we do face the threat of death for ministering in the name of Christ, do we not understand that our eternal protection is secure because of the bloody cross, the empty tomb, and the hope of heaven? If Christ, secured my eternal salvation, when he defeated Satan, Sin, and Death, then the mere threat of death in this life is only a doorway to eternal happiness in the perfect presence of my heavenly Father.
What about the provision of God’s Word and missional community? God saw fit to not only produce his written Word (through men like Ezra) for you and I but he also gave his one and only son, Jesus who is the Word of God in the flesh who lived the perfect life that none of us could live and died the atoning death that none of us could die and miraculously walked out of the grave three days later so that in him, in Christ, we might come to a saving knowledge of the gospel and then be united with other gospel formed brothers and sisters who are united in heart, mind, and soul in the mission to restore, rebuild, reform, and establish the kingdom of God here on this earth in the form of the local church.
When I think about all of God’s provision towards Ezra and I make the connection to all of God’s provision towards us in the person and the work of Jesus Christ, I cannot help but to be filled with courage for what lies ahead and I cannot help but to feel the weight of the responsibility in leadership that Ezra must have felt as he began that one-thousand mile journey from Babylon to Jerusalem with a letter from the king in his hand.
As I envision that journey for Ezra with that letter from the king in his hand, I am reminded that you and I have a journey ahead of us and thank God that we too have a copy of a letter from a crucified, risen, and returning King in our hands! Isn’t it amazing? That the King of kings would put his letter in our hands and then send us to restore, rebuild, reform, and establish his kingdom here on this earth? Doesn’t that fill you with great courage to face whatever may come?
1 Unless otherwise specified, all Bible references in this paper are to the English Standard Version Bible, The New Classic Reference Edition (ESV) (Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers, 2001).