The NXR Podcast - SERMON - The Rise of Caesar & The Blessing of Christian Princes

00:00:00.000 a new series through the book of Ezra, much anticipated.

00:00:03.540 We've been talking about it for a few months.

00:00:05.160 We took a break for multiple months

00:00:07.660 after completing a preaching series

00:00:10.120 through the book of Joshua.

00:00:11.680 In a nutshell, God used Joshua as commander-in-chief

00:00:16.280 of Israel at the time, the successor of Moses,

00:00:20.200 to enter into the promised land for the very first time

00:00:23.620 and to lead Israel in actually conquering the land

00:00:27.680 and establishing Israel in that land to conquer and drive out all of their enemies.

00:00:33.520 And so we preach through the book of Joshua, and that's one of the major themes that we saw.

00:00:36.700 We know that Joshua also serves as a type of Christ that is a symbol pointing towards

00:00:41.560 the higher and greater and ultimate Joshua, Yeshua, Deliverer, who is Jesus.

00:00:47.380 And that what Joshua did, in a literal sense, driving out people that were enemies of God,

00:00:53.900 and many of them in a very literal sense were not actually people but demonic hybrids. Joshua being

00:01:00.860 used by God to drive out descendants of the Nephilim and different demonic peoples and pagan

00:01:09.340 peoples out of the promised land so that Israel the people of God could be established there

00:01:14.220 and build a holy city to the Lord. That's what Joshua did in a very physical sense and that's

00:01:19.880 what Christ has done in the ultimate and spiritual sense by virtue of his life death resurrection and

00:01:26.560 ascension Ezra however the book of Ezra is similar to the book of Joshua except instead of the initial

00:01:34.300 conquering of the land Ezra depicts for us a picture of rebuilding the ruins after the people

00:01:42.840 of God have gone in and conquered the land but then due to their disobedience rebellion against

00:01:48.740 god and his statutes they were allowed in god's sovereignty by way of discipline for their sin

00:01:55.480 god allowed them to be conquered once again and so joshua is going into the land for the first time

00:02:01.800 israel going into the land conquering the land and building a city for god ezra is after 70 years of

00:02:09.440 exile in babylon because israel had gone into the land taken over the land but been unfaithful to

00:02:16.260 the Lord and disobeyed the Lord. And so God allowed them to be taken captive as discipline

00:02:21.980 for their disobedience. And now they're going after 70 years of being disciplined in captivity,

00:02:28.020 they're now being liberated in the sovereignty of God, going back into the land and rebuilding

00:02:34.060 at a national and political application. When I think of for us in our day, in our context,

00:02:42.540 I think that Ezra is actually more relevant than the book of Joshua.

00:02:46.980 All scripture is God-breathed.

00:02:48.260 It's useful for training, rebuking, and equipping the man of God

00:02:51.540 so that he is able to perform every good work.

00:02:54.920 All scripture, every book of the Bible.

00:02:56.900 But I believe that Ezra is especially relevant,

00:03:00.640 even more than the book of Joshua,

00:03:02.460 in the sense that for us, in the year of our Lord, 2024,

00:03:06.680 here in these United States of America,

00:03:09.780 We're not initially conquering the land to build a city on a hill as the Puritans.

00:03:14.960 The Covenanters and many of the pilgrims thought in the founding of our republic,

00:03:20.100 they thought of building a city on a hill that would be a light to the nations.

00:03:23.720 And no one meant by that, just for the record, that the city on a hill,

00:03:27.700 that it would be the new Jerusalem in the sense of a one-to-one ratio replacing Israel.

00:03:34.020 They knew that Israel under the old covenant in the Old Testament was unique

00:03:37.720 and that America would not be the equivalent of Israel,

00:03:40.540 but that America could, in fact, be a Christian nation

00:03:43.440 that would be a shining light, an example to other nations

00:03:47.160 of the blessing of God that comes

00:03:49.000 when a people chooses to obey him, right?

00:03:51.580 That's not just a promise for Israel once upon a time,

00:03:54.820 2,000 years ago under the old covenant,

00:03:57.000 but that's a promise for any nation at any time.

00:04:00.220 The scripture says, blessed is the nation

00:04:03.100 who has Yahweh as their God.

00:04:05.620 The nation that fears Yahweh will be blessed by God.

00:04:09.200 And so that's not just a promise unique to Israel under the Old Covenant,

00:04:12.080 but all nations in all places in all times.

00:04:14.860 And that's how the founders of our nation, our republic, that's how they thought.

00:04:20.380 And so I think Ezra is, again, especially relevant for us

00:04:24.580 because it's not the 1600s or even the 1700s.

00:04:28.920 We're not the pilgrims. We're not the Puritans.

00:04:31.800 We're not the initial covenanters and the 13 colonies.

00:04:35.160 10 out of those 13 of which actually had sanctioned official churches, the equivalent of state

00:04:42.900 churches. Remember, the First Amendment is that Congress, the first word is Congress. Congress

00:04:47.800 cannot decide, make a law saying that there's a federal church, that at the federal level for the

00:04:54.020 nation as a whole, that it's going to be the OPC, Orthodox Presbyterian Church. That's going to be

00:04:59.660 the official national church. Congress cannot do that. There's nothing in our Constitution,

00:05:04.900 just for the record, everybody is always like, First Amendment, First Amendment,

00:05:09.200 of which they probably have read. I was going to say they've never read. They probably have read.

00:05:13.380 The problem is not that they haven't read it. The problem is they don't know how to read.

00:05:16.580 That's usually the problem in our generation today. There were the equivalent of state churches

00:05:22.860 in the very formation of our nation. What you can't have is Congress deciding on a federal

00:05:29.400 national church, but the idea of Americans saying that in a general, a creedal, a pan-Protestant

00:05:35.960 sense, that our nation is a Christian nation, and that we're going to fear the Lord, and we're going

00:05:41.440 to do so exclusively, that we're going to kick to the curb, principled pluralism, this idea that,

00:05:47.600 yeah, you can worship Jesus, and you can also, in Ohio, in a state capitol building, set up

00:05:51.960 a shrine to Satan, and there's, you know, there's freedom for that too. No, there's not. There's not

00:05:57.060 freedom for that. This principle pluralism is just a euphemism for polytheism, and polytheism

00:06:05.040 is just a euphemism ultimately for atheism. And so as Americans, I think, and more so as Christian

00:06:11.660 Americans, we should reject that notion. And so all that being said, our founding as a republic

00:06:17.880 was very much so Christian. And for anybody who's read revisionist history and been indoctrinated

00:06:24.820 by a bunch of progressives and liberals. No, it wasn't a bunch of deists and Unitarians who

00:06:31.820 founded the nation, right? Thomas Jefferson, maybe not our best example, but he was of a minority.

00:06:37.740 Most of the founders, George Washington, I would include as one of them, would have measured up to

00:06:44.180 the equivalent of a modern-day evangelical born-again Christian by today's standards.

00:06:50.140 They would have.

00:06:51.060 George Washington was a Christian, not a mere deist and certainly not a Unitarian.

00:06:56.240 There were some of those.

00:06:57.660 That's certainly true.

00:06:58.680 But that was not the majority report.

00:07:00.440 We were a Christian nation founded by Christians.

00:07:04.560 And then we have apostatized in our sin and rebellion.

00:07:08.100 And I believe currently because of that apostasy, walking away from the Lord, rejecting him,

00:07:13.260 we are currently a nation that is under God's judgment.

00:07:16.780 And I believe it's a severe judgment because he has so blessed us in the beginnings of our republic.

00:07:24.000 And despite his blessings, we have so rebelled and disobeyed him that our judgment is even more severe.

00:07:30.660 And so it was, all that being said, and so it was, that's what was going on with Israel at the time of the book of Ezra.

00:07:37.580 that Israel had been so blessed by God, and yet, despite God's blessing, despite his covenant-keeping

00:07:45.300 faithfulness, his steadfast love, Israel rebelled against God, and then was disciplined, punished

00:07:51.420 by God, led off into captivity for 70 years in Babylon, and now, under a new king, namely Cyrus,

00:07:58.980 which we'll see here in just a moment, they're being led back into Israel to rebuild the ruins.

00:08:04.680 And so again, Joshua is kind of the initiating,

00:08:07.800 going into the land for the very first time

00:08:09.680 and building a city on a hill,

00:08:11.320 a light to the nations, right?

00:08:13.000 That's Joshua.

00:08:14.060 And that would be really relevant if you,

00:08:17.260 again, if it was 300 years ago.

00:08:20.880 But for today and where we're at

00:08:23.200 with a nation that's already been established,

00:08:25.380 and I believe, again, a nation that has Christ

00:08:28.280 in its founding, but has rebelled against Christ

00:08:32.060 and been under his judgment,

00:08:34.160 for several decades now, Ezra is almost too on the nose for American Christians. I think Ezra is

00:08:42.140 incredibly relevant and incredibly applicable for us as the people of God in this place

00:08:49.960 at this time. And so that's part of the purpose in selecting this as the next book of the Bible

00:08:55.760 that by God's grace we'll preach through from beginning to end. All right, so without further

00:09:00.400 ado, which I'm just going to continue to say that even though technically for the record,

00:09:04.720 I just want everybody to know I am aware further ado, that word ado means without further goodbye

00:09:10.440 and I'm not saying goodbye. But that's actually what it means. No further goodbye. I'm actually

00:09:15.500 leaving now, right? I'm actually, or I'm on a call and we've been saying goodbye, you know,

00:09:19.400 for the last five minutes, I'm finally hanging up. That's the proper use of the phrase without

00:09:23.280 further ado, but we don't use it that way. We just use it to mean ado means without further

00:09:27.720 rambling or whatever and so i'm going to continue to use it because nobody knows the actual meaning

00:09:32.080 it's like uh it's like uh eat your cake and have it too which is actually the proper rendering

00:09:37.220 because if you eat it then you can't also have it possess it uh to eat at a later time but we

00:09:43.240 always say have your cake and eat it too and there are certain things that are so backwards at this

00:09:47.620 point that if you say them the right way people will think you're dumb right augustine right what

00:09:52.040 do you say? If you want to sound sophisticated, you have to say Augustine. But turns out that

00:09:56.640 if you are uneducated, you say Augustine. If you're educated, you say Augustine. And then the

00:10:03.020 most educated people go back and say Augustine, right? Because they're like, well, actually,

00:10:08.040 that is technically the right way. That's what I've noticed. It's the same with health, right?

00:10:11.240 So health is like, okay, I'm going to eat eggs because I'm ignorant. And I'm going to eat the

00:10:15.260 white and the yellow. I'm eating the whole thing. I'm sophisticated. I'm not going to eat eggs. I'm

00:10:19.560 really intelligent, full circle back to eggs. Turns out they're good. You know, so that's,

00:10:24.480 you know, that's the way it works. So anyways, without further ado, improperly used, let's stand

00:10:29.360 for the reading of God's word. This is Ezra chapter one. I'll read our text in its entirety.

00:10:33.940 When I finish reading the text, I'm going to say, this is the word of the Lord. At which point I

00:10:37.660 would appreciate very much if you would respond by saying, thanks be to God. One final time,

00:10:41.680 our text for today is the book of Ezra chapter one. The word of the Lord says this in the first

00:10:47.980 year of Cyrus, king of Persia, that the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah might be fulfilled,

00:10:54.080 the Lord stirred up the spirit of Cyrus, king of Persia, so that he made a proclamation throughout

00:10:59.880 all his kingdom and also put it in writing. Thus says Cyrus, king of Persia, the Lord,

00:11:05.980 the God of heaven has given me all the kingdoms of the earth and he has charged me to build him

00:11:11.600 a house at Jerusalem, which is in Judah. Whoever is among you of all his people, may his God be

00:11:19.440 with him. And let him go up to Jerusalem, which is in Judah, and rebuild the house of the Lord,

00:11:24.800 the God of Israel. He is the God who is in Jerusalem. And let each survivor in whatever

00:11:30.400 place he sojourns be assisted by the men of his place with silver and gold, with goods and with

00:11:38.020 beast besides freewill offerings for the house of God that is in Jerusalem. Then rose up the heads

00:11:45.280 of the father's houses of Judah and Benjamin and the priest and the Levites, everyone whose spirit

00:11:52.180 God had stirred up to go up and rebuild the house of the Lord that is in Jerusalem. And all who were

00:11:59.660 about them aided them with vessels of silver, with gold, with goods, with beast, and with costly

00:12:06.200 wears besides all that was freely offered. Cyrus, the king, also brought out the vessels of the

00:12:13.560 house of the Lord that Nebuchadnezzar had carried away from Jerusalem and placed in the house of his

00:12:19.040 gods. Cyrus, king of Persia, brought these out in the charge of Mithradoth, the treasurer, who

00:12:26.660 counted them out to Shesh-bazar, the prince of Judah. And this was the number of them, 30 basins

00:12:33.700 of gold, a thousand basins of silver, 29 censures, 30 bowls of gold, 410 bowls of silver, and a

00:12:46.060 thousand other vessels. All the vessels of gold and of silver were 5,400. And all these did Shesh

00:12:54.400 Bazar bring up when the exiles were brought up from Babylonia to Jerusalem. This is the word of

00:13:01.280 the Lord. All right, please be seated. Let's go ahead and dive right in. First thing that I want

00:13:05.800 to do, because we're starting, this is our first week starting a new book of the Bible. I want to

00:13:09.920 provide some historical context so that we can properly place this narrative, this account,

00:13:16.660 historical account of Israel, what God did with them at this time. I want us to place it correctly,

00:13:22.980 chronologically within the larger story of the Old Testament. So historical context,

00:13:29.240 I've written the following. According to biblical accounts, the 70-year captivity had prophetic

00:13:35.000 significance. The prophet Jeremiah had predicted a period of 70 years during which the land of

00:13:41.120 Judah would lie desolate and the people would serve the king of Babylon. And this is all said

00:13:47.340 in Jeremiah chapter 25 verses 11 through 12 and chapter 29 verse 10. In part, the 70 years of

00:13:55.180 exile for Israel, being led out of the land of Jerusalem, of Israel, and held in captivity

00:14:01.200 in Babylon. In part, this was because Israel had been in the promised land at this point for

00:14:08.380 roughly 800 years, and for 490 of those 800 years, they had disobeyed God's Sabbath rest.

00:14:17.940 Now, the Sabbath rest was, in their case, the last day of the week, Saturday, so it was a weekly

00:14:23.560 Sabbath. We see that in Exodus chapter 20, in the Ten Commandments issued by God through Moses to

00:14:29.560 the people of Israel. But in addition to the weekly Sabbath, there were also Sabbaths once

00:14:36.960 every seven years, and so a yearly type of Sabbath. And so once every seven years, the seventh year,

00:14:44.680 at the end of six years, they were supposed to give a Sabbath rest even to the land. So in the

00:14:50.120 same way there was a weekly rest for the people themselves and even for their livestock and beast

00:14:55.400 you had to rest your ox you had to rest your donkey on the seventh day in a weekly sense well

00:15:01.420 in a seven-year cycle you were supposed to give that last year the seventh year a rest not only

00:15:07.000 to the beast not only to the people not only to your servants or to the sojourners in your midst

00:15:11.580 but also to the even the land itself and Israel had neglected and rebelled against God in obeying

00:15:19.160 this particular commandment for 490 years so the majority of the time over half of the time of the

00:15:25.900 800 years that they had actually been in the promised land so 800 years have gone by at this

00:15:31.660 point from Israel entering in initially to the promised land and and now them at the end of 800

00:15:38.580 years being taken out of the land under the judgment of God his discipline by Nebuchadnezzar

00:15:44.160 who was the king of Babylon at the time,

00:15:46.360 they're taken out of the land as a punishment,

00:15:49.220 as a discipline for 70 years of captivity.

00:15:52.300 And the last 490 years,

00:15:55.480 the latter 490 years of that 800 year period,

00:15:58.680 they had not been giving this Sabbath rest,

00:16:01.300 the seventh year a rest to the land.

00:16:03.680 And if you take 490 and you think,

00:16:06.260 okay, well, how many years does that add up

00:16:09.140 to the seventh year, one year out of every seven?

00:16:11.480 So take 490 divided by seven

00:16:13.500 and you come up with 70.

00:16:15.460 There's 70 years that Israel neglected

00:16:18.180 to give the land a rest in obedience to God's command.

00:16:22.260 And it's not a coincidence,

00:16:24.160 they're now in captivity in Babylon

00:16:26.280 for precisely 70 years.

00:16:28.400 And the land, we're told in the opening

00:16:31.040 to the book of Ezra, the land is now left desolate.

00:16:35.200 So God is going to rest the land

00:16:37.100 whether Israel obeys him or not,

00:16:39.560 namely by taking Israel out of the land

00:16:41.840 and putting them for 70 years in captivity in Babylon.

00:16:46.180 Now, in terms of chronological order of the prophets, you have Isaiah.

00:16:51.140 And then later, not long later, but a few decades later, you have Jeremiah.

00:16:56.000 Isaiah prophesied in multiple instances that Israel would be taken into captivity.

00:17:01.800 Jeremiah specifically prophesied the length of time that Israel would be held in captivity

00:17:07.700 and when they would be liberated, when they would return.

00:17:11.360 So Isaiah spoke, Israel knew this, Isaiah said, you're going to be under the judgment of God for

00:17:17.460 your disobedience. Israel's disobedience and rebellion and sin in many, many different ways,

00:17:24.020 but one of those ways being neglecting the seventh year, the last year of every seven-year cycle of

00:17:30.060 resting the land, the Sabbath rest. But there were many other sins as well. And so Isaiah initially

00:17:35.760 said, you're going to be under God's judgment for your disobedience and be taken into captivity.

00:17:40.620 Jeremiah further clarifies, specified the prophecies of Isaiah,

00:17:45.560 who was a few decades earlier preceding Jeremiah,

00:17:48.580 saying this is where you're going to be taken into captivity,

00:17:51.320 and this is how long you'll be in captivity,

00:17:53.260 and this is when the Lord will liberate you,

00:17:55.700 and you will return to the land.

00:17:57.720 And here we have it, at the opening of the book of Ezra.

00:18:00.620 It has now been, according to the word of God,

00:18:03.440 spoken through Jeremiah, it's been precisely 70 years at this point.

00:18:07.500 And so many in Israel are aware of Jeremiah's prophecies and they know that the timing is now that they're going to be liberated by the Lord and they're going to be allowed, permitted to go back into the promised land, led out of captivity back into the land.

00:18:23.540 and that there's going to be a lot of work to do

00:18:25.760 because they're going into a land

00:18:27.520 that was utterly conquered by Nebuchadnezzar,

00:18:30.760 by Babylon 70 years ago

00:18:32.540 when they were initially taken into captivity.

00:18:35.200 They weren't just taken as prisoners,

00:18:36.940 but Nebuchadnezzar, he destroyed everything,

00:18:39.160 including the temple.

00:18:40.440 So they know now's the time of our freedom,

00:18:42.600 but notice this, all right, don't miss this.

00:18:44.360 Now is the time of our freedom.

00:18:45.760 Yay, that's good.

00:18:46.940 But also it's the time of a lot of work

00:18:49.940 because freedom is hard work.

00:18:52.700 Did you know that? Freedom is really, really hard. Because freedom means you got to do a lot of stuff for yourself. It means that you don't just necessarily have, you know, the state providing every single thing that you need, but you actually have to get to work.

00:19:09.660 There's a sense in which Israel was in captivity.

00:19:12.620 And again, that is God's discipline, his judgment over Israel for that time period.

00:19:17.100 And it was hard in one sense, right, that you don't have freedom.

00:19:21.760 You don't have liberty.

00:19:23.100 So there's a difficulty in being captive.

00:19:26.220 And that was God's rod of discipline for Israel for 70 years.

00:19:29.400 But there's another difficulty in a different sense in freedom.

00:19:33.760 There's a difficulty that comes with captivity, namely less freedom.

00:19:37.500 But there's a difficulty that comes with freedom, namely hard work.

00:19:42.380 Hard work.

00:19:43.040 That's the difficulty that comes with freedom.

00:19:46.000 And so there were some in Israel, as far as we can tell, by way of implication from the text,

00:19:51.180 that weren't necessarily on board for this project because it's not just returning to the land of freedom.

00:19:56.580 It's returning to the land of freedom that has been desolated to rubble where there's going to be a building project

00:20:03.120 which is going to require blood, sweat, and tears.

00:20:05.500 You're going to have to work.

00:20:06.540 You're going to have to rebuild the ruins of this land, this great land where you once lived.

00:20:13.000 But you've been decimated because of your disobedience to God.

00:20:17.320 God and his sovereignty as a judgment for your rebellion against him allowed you to be conquered.

00:20:22.420 And now you're going to go back.

00:20:24.020 God is giving you liberation and freedom.

00:20:26.040 But it means you're going to have to go back.

00:20:28.060 And from the bottom up, starting at square one, you have to rebuild the ruins.

00:20:33.640 And it's not Nebuchadnezzar's fault.

00:20:35.420 not in the ultimate sense it's your fault it's your father's fault for their disobedience and

00:20:41.160 rejection of god's command so that's the context that's where we are reading a little bit further

00:20:45.960 with historical context just to give you an idea now of the last 70 years so that gives you the

00:20:50.400 big picture of joshua coming into the land as a successor of moses 800 years total that they're

00:20:56.340 in the land the last 490 years neglecting to give that seventh year sabbath rest 490 divided by

00:21:03.380 seven, exactly 70 years. And so that's the significance and the reasoning. It's not

00:21:08.300 arbitrary, but the reasoning behind God's decision in his providence to give them 70 years of

00:21:14.560 captivity in Babylon. But now giving you a little bit more history of the 70 years of captivity,

00:21:19.960 I've written the following. At the opening of the book of Ezra, the condition of the government in

00:21:25.360 Babylon where Israel was being held captive was this. Nebuchadnezzar, right? So when they're first

00:21:31.300 taken captive? It's Nebuchadnezzar. He's the king of Babylon at the time. Nebuchadnezzar took many

00:21:37.220 of the people of Israel captive in the first year of his reign. Nebuchadnezzar ruled for 45 years,

00:21:45.440 right? So he's got a long tenure there, followed by his son, evil Merodach, right? When you're

00:21:52.420 wondering who's the bad guy, you know, sometimes, you know, God just makes it really simple, right?

00:21:55.920 When part of your name is evil.

00:21:57.980 Now, this is coming from an ignorant guy

00:22:01.380 who doesn't speak Hebrew.

00:22:04.000 My only language is English.

00:22:06.460 So maybe it means something totally different,

00:22:08.660 but I'm just looking at E-V-I-L.

00:22:11.720 I'm like, that guy can't be a good king.

00:22:13.780 His name is evil.

00:22:15.220 And God just does this sometimes.

00:22:16.600 God, in his mercy, he just right on the nose,

00:22:19.600 he'll just name, just like I was talking

00:22:21.740 with Justin before the service, like John Bunyan.

00:22:24.600 He'd be like, okay, this guy is Lord hate good.

00:22:27.480 Is he a good guy or a bad guy?

00:22:28.980 Like it's real obvious.

00:22:29.940 Bunyan, you know, he wasn't super subtle.

00:22:32.360 He was very obvious.

00:22:34.040 And it seems like God in his sovereignty, you know, being a little bit obvious, at least for the English readers.

00:22:39.780 So Nebuchadnezzar, 45 years of the 70 years, because he took Israel captive in his first year of his reign.

00:22:46.420 So he reigned for 45 years.

00:22:47.980 in the first year, took Israel captive, and then he's followed after 45 years by his son,

00:22:53.600 evil Merodach, for 23 years, right? So we're almost at 70 at this point. 45 plus 23, we're at,

00:23:00.600 what is that? 67. No? About. Okay, and then his grandson, Belshazzar, for three years,

00:23:10.140 totaling seven years, right? So after, so it's Nebuchadnezzar, then evil Merodach, then his

00:23:15.660 grandson Belshazzar for three years totaling the 70 years now Nebuchadnezzar was judged by God

00:23:22.240 for many sins he was not a great guy all right and he was judged multiple times there's a lot

00:23:27.480 that you can read throughout the the Old Testament scripture about Nebuchadnezzar he had some shiny

00:23:32.220 moments it wasn't all bad every now and then he did something good but on the whole not a great

00:23:37.660 king not a great guy and he was judged for many sins but one of the sins that he was judged for

00:23:42.780 not least of which was his indifference towards the people of Israel, which was demonstrated by

00:23:48.560 his failure to release his prisoners, his captives, as mentioned in Isaiah chapter 14, verse 17.

00:23:56.020 So this is mentioned by Isaiah that Nebuchadnezzar would be judged by God for his many sins, not least

00:24:03.240 of which specifically was his sin of indifference, his lack of sympathy towards the people of Israel

00:24:10.460 in not releasing them from captivity.

00:24:13.060 The very people he took into captivity,

00:24:15.380 he chose in his hardness of heart

00:24:17.240 not to release them from captivity.

00:24:19.680 And I'll make a point on that in just one moment.

00:24:21.880 Daniel warned Nebuchadnezzar

00:24:23.420 that showing mercy to the Jews

00:24:25.560 would have prolonged his peace.

00:24:27.680 That's Daniel chapter four, verse 27.

00:24:30.300 But the king of Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar, refused.

00:24:33.320 Therefore, Babylon's sins reached their limit eventually,

00:24:37.500 and not arbitrarily,

00:24:39.080 precisely at the 70-year mark their sins had reached their limit in the sight of god

00:24:44.220 leading to to its own destruction by darius the mede and cyrus the persian they joined together

00:24:51.960 the medes and the persians darius the king of the medes cyrus the king of the persians as recorded

00:24:57.620 in daniel chapter 5 and when darius grew old he passed the government on to cyrus who in turn

00:25:04.600 played a key role in the Jews' liberation. Now, one point I want to make real quick. God judged

00:25:10.820 Nebuchadnezzar, who was the king of Babylon, and in his first year of his 45-year-long reign,

00:25:16.900 he took Israel captive. And God judged Nebuchadnezzar for not showing mercy and compassion

00:25:24.040 to the people of Israel and letting them go. And yet, here's the thing, God had prophesied

00:25:30.560 through jeremiah previously that israel would not be let go but that they would in fact be held

00:25:37.360 captive for 70 years so it was the will of god that nebuchadnezzar should not let israel go

00:25:44.700 and it was the will of god that nebuchadnezzar do the right moral thing which was to let israel go

00:25:53.220 and we think in those we get confused um it's important i've said this before but i want to

00:25:59.800 say it again. In theological terms, this is what we would refer to as the two, not one, but two

00:26:05.140 wills of God. And it's not two contradicting wills. It's not a contradiction. It may be an

00:26:11.620 apparent paradox, but it is not in a legitimate sense a paradox or a contradiction. God has two

00:26:18.380 wills. And theologians, this is not, nobody, I didn't come up with this, all right? This is not

00:26:23.000 my theology. I don't have my theology. All my theology is somebody else's. Even the Christian

00:26:27.320 nationalism thing. All that is is just theology from Puritans and from the Protestant reformers

00:26:34.500 and from these guys a few hundred years ago. It's like, man, this guy, his theology is really

00:26:38.300 radical. All you have to do to have radical theology is just read a book that was written

00:26:42.600 more than 60 years old. That's all you have to do. Just read a book, what the common person

00:26:48.100 thought for thousands of years until 15 minutes ago. Repeat that in your own words, and boom,

00:26:55.100 you're radical okay so um all that being said the the point is this the two wills of god which is a

00:27:00.760 a classic traditional reform doctrine that has been held for centuries is that god has his hidden

00:27:06.900 will and his revealed will um and these go under other titles as well so other labels would be

00:27:13.320 hidden will would also be sovereign will and then over here his revealed will uh would be referenced

00:27:21.260 as his moral will, his moral imperatives.

00:27:26.380 And to further flesh that out,

00:27:28.140 to give you a little bit of scripture for that,

00:27:29.740 one reference would be when God says to Israel,

00:27:32.620 or Israel says of God,

00:27:34.560 they say that the hidden things belong to the Lord.

00:27:38.540 But those things which he has revealed

00:27:41.240 belong to us and our children forever.

00:27:45.360 That they recognize that there are things that are hidden

00:27:48.060 and intentionally by design, hidden by God,

00:27:51.260 And there are things which God has revealed.

00:27:53.640 So when we speak of God's hidden will versus his revealed will,

00:27:57.820 we're speaking of his sovereign will,

00:27:59.640 that which he has sovereignly ordained to come about,

00:28:02.600 and that which he has morally prescribed in the imperatives and commandments of Scripture.

00:28:09.140 So there's things that he has said out loud, explicitly,

00:28:12.540 do this that you might live.

00:28:14.480 Do not do this, for you will be judged.

00:28:17.120 But then God, at times, in his sovereign will, might ordain the very things that he forbid.

00:28:24.620 The best example, the premier example, would be the murder of God's own son, Jesus Christ.

00:28:30.680 Right? The book of Acts speaks of this, both in chapter 2 and in chapter 4.

00:28:34.620 It says, did God not, in his sovereignty, did he not gather here in this holy city,

00:28:40.160 speaking of Jerusalem, all the Jews and Pilate, Pontius Pilate, and Herod,

00:28:44.820 and all these Romans and this and that,

00:28:47.300 all these people together,

00:28:48.440 to do to his son, namely what?

00:28:51.120 His crucifixion, his murder,

00:28:53.260 to do to his son exactly what his hand

00:28:56.720 and his plan predestined to take place.

00:29:01.280 So on the one hand, God's will,

00:29:04.380 we can say this with all sincerity, 100% true,

00:29:07.440 God's will as it pertains to his revealed will,

00:29:10.980 what he has revealed to us on the pages of scripture,

00:29:13.400 his moral will, his commandments, God's will, is thou shalt not murder. Now, what do you call the

00:29:20.960 crucifixion of Jesus, right, that was where there was a mock trial in the middle of the night,

00:29:27.940 held in the middle of the night, where they produced false witnesses, giving false accounts,

00:29:33.220 and then killed Jesus based off of a trial that they knew was a sham.

00:29:39.800 Well, what do you call the killing of an innocent man?

00:29:43.440 It's called murder, right?

00:29:45.340 So thou shall not murder.

00:29:47.140 Is it God's will that people not murder?

00:29:50.460 Yes, right?

00:29:51.420 It's not a trick question.

00:29:52.240 It's real simple.

00:29:53.120 Yes, it is God's will that people not murder.

00:29:55.960 Well, is it God's will that people not murder his own son?

00:30:00.480 Well, that one is a little bit more complicated.

00:30:02.380 The answer is yes and also no.

00:30:05.900 It was God's will, in his revealed will, his moral will, don't murder Jesus.

00:30:11.540 Meaning everyone who conspired to murder Jesus is morally complicit, culpable, responsible,

00:30:17.920 and judged by God for that disobedience, for that rebellion, that sin.

00:30:22.180 And yet in God's hidden will, his sovereign will, God's hand, his very hand, and his very plan,

00:30:29.200 ordained, other scripture would say, since before even the foundations of the earth were laid,

00:30:34.900 it was the will of God that he would crush him.

00:30:38.940 So God's will was that his son would be murdered.

00:30:43.240 He would be killed.

00:30:44.380 His blood spilled out for the remission of sins

00:30:47.280 as a sacrificial lamb,

00:30:49.220 the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.

00:30:52.140 So God's sovereign hidden will

00:30:53.720 from ages past before the foundations of the world were laid,

00:30:57.580 Jesus being murdered to ransom his people.

00:31:02.000 And God's moral revealed will

00:31:04.600 don't murder and especially don't murder jesus both things simultaneously true at once as it

00:31:12.640 pertains to our text nebuchadnezzar on the one hand nebuchadnezzar soften your hearts and let

00:31:18.820 your captives go that's the moral will well god spoke to nebuchadnezzar through daniel

00:31:25.600 explicitly through a prophet this is the revealed will of god through the prophet that special

00:31:30.600 revelation explicitly spoken nebuchadnezzar heard it and he refused he refused to obey god so on the

00:31:37.340 one hand you have the revealed moral will of god special revelation spoken through the prophet

00:31:42.720 daniel and nebuchadnezzar hardens his heart and he is judged by god for his disobedience his refusal

00:31:47.820 to let israel go over here also in god's will in his sovereign will it was a will of god that

00:31:54.580 Israel should not be liberated, but rather that they should remain in captivity for precisely

00:32:00.420 seven years as spoken through the prophet Jeremiah. Two things can be simultaneously true.

00:32:07.880 And to put all that, a little bow, a little ribbon on it, the point is this. When we speak of God's

00:32:13.420 sovereignty, we are not saying that God is merely sovereign over the good things in life,

00:32:19.340 or even the big things in life like the death of Jesus or a king like Nebuchadnezzar and the

00:32:24.420 decisions he makes. When we say that God is sovereign, we are saying, as the late great

00:32:28.540 R.C. Sproul once said, there is not one maverick molecule in all the universe. We mean God is

00:32:34.440 sovereign over everyone, at every time, and everything. And that everything category, which

00:32:42.280 is a all-encompassing category, it includes, brothers and sisters, not merely our moments

00:32:47.940 of obedience, that God is sovereign over that, but it includes moments of our sin. When we sin,

00:32:55.780 we sin because God in his sovereignty ordained before the foundations of the earth and the

00:33:03.040 councils of eternity that we would do precisely that sin at that time in that way. And yet,

00:33:10.960 God is not the origin or source of our sin. He is not morally responsible for our sin.

00:33:17.940 Human agency. We bear the moral culpability. So God is absolved. He bears no agency or responsibility

00:33:24.840 for that sin. And yet he is still sovereign in ordaining all things that are done, including

00:33:30.760 not just our good moments, but our bad moments, our sin. So God is sovereign over Nebuchadnezzar

00:33:35.900 in his sin, in his refusal to listen to Daniel and let the people of Israel go. And yet, so

00:33:42.140 nebuchadnezzar is responsible for refusing god and yet god in his will two wills on the one hand

00:33:48.980 nebuchadnezzar let him go on the other you're not going to let him go ultimately because i've

00:33:54.140 determined for them to be held captive there for 70 years so it is with us and here's how we know

00:33:58.560 we know from multiple places in scripture the death of jesus being an example acts chapter 4

00:34:03.020 this being an example ezra chapter 1 but one all-encompassing example as it pertains to you

00:34:08.440 and I as individual people would be Romans chapter 8. And we know that God is working all things for

00:34:15.900 the good of those who love him and are called according to his purpose. Again, the category,

00:34:21.320 an all-encompassing category, being all things. God is working which things? Some things, good

00:34:27.680 things, obedient things, righteous things. Nope. All things, which include suffering, sickness,

00:34:33.280 and sin. God is working and that working is not in the text. It's not working, meaning he is

00:34:40.660 salvaging or he is changing. No, it means he is working. He is planning from the beginning. He

00:34:47.400 is working, ordaining, planning all things, orchestrating all things, good things and bad

00:34:54.500 things, all things for our good. The good of his people, the good of the church. Ephesians chapter

00:35:01.320 in one verse 20 would be one more example. It says that God has set him up being his son Christ

00:35:07.780 Jesus. He has positioned him, installed him, set him up as head of the church. Nope. Ephesians 1 20

00:35:15.440 says head of all things to the benefit of the church. So Jesus, is he head of the church? Yes.

00:35:22.500 Yes and amen a thousand times. Is he uniquely head of the church? Is he head of the church in a way

00:35:27.660 that he is head of no other thing?

00:35:29.280 Yes, that too.

00:35:30.400 He is head of the church

00:35:31.220 and he is uniquely head of the church

00:35:33.260 in the sense that the church

00:35:34.820 is the only institution for which Christ died.

00:35:37.880 So he is uniquely head of the church.

00:35:39.420 But is he exclusively head of the church?

00:35:42.100 No.

00:35:43.100 Christ is not only head of the church.

00:35:45.300 He is head of the church,

00:35:46.560 uniquely head of the church,

00:35:47.680 but he is also head,

00:35:49.700 speaking of authority, control,

00:35:52.100 head of all institutions

00:35:53.920 and all peoples and all creatures

00:35:56.260 and all planets and all things.

00:35:59.400 Jesus is head of the church.

00:36:00.840 Yes and amen.

00:36:01.960 He's also head of the state.

00:36:03.840 He's also head of your family.

00:36:05.960 He's head of the marketplace.

00:36:07.800 He's head of medicine.

00:36:08.960 He's head of this.

00:36:09.600 He's head of that.

00:36:10.360 He is sovereign, the head, the supreme authority

00:36:13.540 over all institutions, all organizations,

00:36:16.660 and all nations and all individual people.

00:36:19.840 Jesus is head over all things.

00:36:22.520 And so in Ephesians 1.20, it says he is head.

00:36:25.920 God has set him up, positioned him as head of all things, but to the benefit of the church.

00:36:30.840 And that's what we see time and time again, whether it's Romans chapter eight or Ephesians

00:36:34.800 chapter one, God is sovereign in authority, in control over everything. And he's working it all

00:36:41.580 for two purposes. One, for his eternal glory and two, for the good of his people. For the good of

00:36:49.680 his people you're sick if you're sick and you're in christ god is not just going to salvage change

00:36:58.700 that sickness but he actually planned that sickness for your eternal good for your eternal

00:37:05.720 good for your eternal joy and peace and satisfaction in christ eons and eons into the life to come

00:37:15.240 You will never, in the life to come, there will never be a day where you'll say, I wish that God didn't give me this form of suffering.

00:37:23.400 Or I wish that, no, you will look back and say with confidence and certainty, everything he did was good.

00:37:32.220 He does all things well, as the scriptures say.

00:37:34.420 He does all things rightly.

00:37:36.320 And that includes not only suffering, but it also includes sin.

00:37:40.880 It includes sin.

00:37:42.100 Where we can have genuine regret and remorse.

00:37:44.720 we call that in a godly sorrow that would be leading towards repentance we must have that

00:37:49.720 as christians we can repent over our sin mourn over our sin and in the same breath say i own this

00:37:56.180 it's my fault i'm the source i'm culpable responsible for this sin i deeply grieve over

00:38:03.360 my sin i'm repenting of my sin and yet god is still ultimately above it all sovereign over

00:38:08.740 all things which includes my sin and i know he will use this sin not in a way that absolves me

00:38:14.600 of my moral responsibility. I own it. I'm responsible. I repent. And yet in his mercy

00:38:20.600 and sovereignty, he ordained it and he'll use it for his glory and my good. Both things

00:38:26.600 simultaneously true. The sovereignty of God. All right, here we go. The rise of Caesar and the

00:38:35.700 need for a Christian prince. All right, Americans do. You will not like this. I'll just say that

00:38:41.020 right now uh america we we have like signs and stuff you know like in gift shops you know it

00:38:46.460 says we have no sovereign here right you know sticking it to england stick it to the monarchy

00:38:51.860 the king and and i get that i understand um let i'll start with this hi every biblical example

00:39:00.520 that i've been able to find of democracy is negative every single one right the people say

00:39:07.480 give us a king. God says, that was bad. That was a bad idea, right? Or Pilate turns to the people,

00:39:14.000 right? Because he doesn't want to be morally responsible. He's trying to wash his hands.

00:39:17.280 Even his wife has had visions and dreams and knows like there's something about this Jesus guy. I

00:39:22.560 think he's a good man, an innocent man. Please, you do not want to be responsible for his crucifixion,

00:39:28.000 for his killing. And so Pilate's washing his hands. Well, I'll just, I'll just hand it to the people,

00:39:32.820 right? It's just, it'll be the people. And he calls the Jews and he says, you know, what do

00:39:37.120 you want to do right democracy is in session you know and and he says you want to release Jesus or

00:39:43.000 do you want to release Barabbas who was a known criminal and and the people in and you know our

00:39:49.720 sacred democracy our sacred democracy the people rise up and say give us release to us Barabbas

00:39:55.680 the known criminal and we all know he's guilty and keep as your prisoner Jesus and you know

00:40:03.020 Okay. And then he asked a second question, right? A second moment for, for our sacred democracy to

00:40:08.180 really shine. And he says, you know, then what do I do with this Jesus and in a spirit of democracy?

00:40:13.700 And this is a hundred percent agreement here. As far as we can tell everybody, you know, I mean,

00:40:17.660 this isn't just a 50% plus one. This is like a, like a 95% vote, right? The Jews rise up and the

00:40:25.000 sacred democracy for the wind W's in the chat. It comes through again, crucify him. Democracy.

00:40:33.660 Democracy, death of Jesus.

00:40:37.300 Democracy, King Saul.

00:40:40.880 In biblical terms, democracy is never spoken of well.

00:40:45.440 And the founders of our republic, they didn't speak of it well either.

00:40:50.740 Not as far as it goes as a raw democracy.

00:40:54.560 A raw democracy is foolish.

00:40:56.760 Do you know why?

00:40:57.880 Do you know why a raw democracy is foolish?

00:41:00.740 Because not all people were meant to rule.

00:41:03.020 do you know why raw democracy is foolish because god is sovereign and in his design

00:41:09.800 even if it offends our post-war modern sensibilities as westerners in god's design

00:41:16.940 regardless of our modern preference god has baked into his image-bearing creatures a system

00:41:24.200 that he calls good which is called hierarchy not egalitarianism but rather hierarchy

00:41:32.840 And in the spirit of hierarchy, God's good design,

00:41:35.920 we have a hierarchy of authority, offices,

00:41:40.400 but also there is a hierarchy of ability.

00:41:43.840 Not just office, but person and their ability.

00:41:48.480 For instance, not every single individual person

00:41:51.740 has the same physical strength, has the same IQ.

00:41:56.860 Did you know that?

00:41:57.640 Did you know that some people are more intelligent than others?

00:42:02.040 Turns out, well, I would like to have a person

00:42:07.440 who doesn't have dementia in a position of authority.

00:42:13.100 Right?

00:42:13.880 Is that crazy?

00:42:15.680 Right?

00:42:15.960 So this idea of this just raw, you know, democracy

00:42:21.300 or this ironclad egalitarianism, everything's equal.

00:42:26.700 But it's not.

00:42:27.500 I have eyes and I'm looking and it's not equal.

00:42:30.980 Right?

00:42:32.040 be equal we'll make it equal well how do you make something equal when god the original creator

00:42:39.460 made things not equal how do you as man make something equal that god made with variety

00:42:47.080 and that he called good well what you have to do is you can only bring up the weak so far

00:42:55.020 so eventually what you have to do is hamstring the strong what you have to do is you have to say

00:43:02.580 well well you're intelligent so we're gonna we're gonna penalize you we're gonna penalize you

00:43:09.920 you're scoring what really well on the SATs and you've been doing that traditionally for decades

00:43:16.800 and you know so you don't get to get in anymore and you know this other person

00:43:24.480 They're a plagiarist.

00:43:28.380 But Harvard needs a diverse president, right?

00:43:34.320 DEI, diversity, equity, inclusion, that's what it is.

00:43:37.840 It's the root of all that feminism,

00:43:41.840 wokeness, social justice,

00:43:44.360 all that the root of it is egalitarianism.

00:43:47.460 And egalitarianism, just for the record,

00:43:49.800 you know what it's also the root of?

00:43:51.160 Not just feminism.

00:43:53.160 It's not just the root of feminism.

00:43:54.740 It's not just the root of social justice

00:43:57.300 and this and that and the other,

00:43:58.440 and wokeness and DEI.

00:44:01.040 Egalitarianism is ultimately,

00:44:02.460 it's the root of communism and socialism.

00:44:07.680 Egalitarianism when applied to gender, right?

00:44:09.840 Well, it gets feminism first, right?

00:44:12.240 Because, well, the patriarchy, it had a good run

00:44:14.380 and they're light years ahead.

00:44:16.220 And so we've got to catch the women up.

00:44:17.880 And so it starts as feminism,

00:44:19.340 but eventually it'll boil down to the same.

00:44:23.120 It's not equality.

00:44:24.940 It's ultimately, its ultimate goal is sameness.

00:44:28.360 So the goal is not 137 different genders.

00:44:31.440 It's one.

00:44:32.740 But it's easier to go from two to eight to 40 to 100

00:44:38.180 and then just say, well, it's so confusing now.

00:44:40.720 It just becomes a blob of one.

00:44:43.560 Then going from two to one, that's easy.

00:44:47.100 Everybody's going to notice that.

00:44:48.580 Two to one, what?

00:44:50.400 That's crazy.

00:44:51.660 But two to three, then five, then ten.

00:44:54.980 And then eventually it's like, okay, I can't keep up with it anymore.

00:44:57.920 It might as well just be one.

00:44:59.160 Right?

00:44:59.380 That's how you do it with gender.

00:45:00.700 Right?

00:45:01.060 With economics.

00:45:01.840 How do you do it with economics?

00:45:03.500 Egalitarianism becomes socialism, which is just the fourth stench of communism.

00:45:10.400 Right?

00:45:10.640 So you go to socialism.

00:45:12.780 In all these different ways, you're just steamrolling everything into one.

00:45:18.860 And so the real goal is not even equality.

00:45:21.720 It's androgyny.

00:45:24.120 It's androgyny.

00:45:25.840 Everything is the same.

00:45:27.240 Everything is the same.

00:45:28.420 Everything is the same.

00:45:29.520 No variety.

00:45:30.780 No distinctions.

00:45:32.640 No hierarchies.

00:45:33.940 Because all hierarchies are oppressive.

00:45:36.520 All hierarchies are evil.

00:45:38.480 Inherently so.

00:45:39.320 All hierarchies are bad.

00:45:40.760 But that's not the language of Scripture.

00:45:43.360 That is the language of modern Westerners.

00:45:48.080 and we have to

00:45:49.800 I mean I know this sounds so obvious

00:45:51.500 but it has to be said again and again

00:45:53.040 the language of modern westerners

00:45:56.400 and the language of scripture

00:45:58.040 are not synonymous

00:45:59.340 we read the scripture

00:46:02.080 and we literally read the scripture

00:46:03.300 and we think the scripture

00:46:04.940 explicitly spells out classical liberalism

00:46:08.140 what a wonderful coincidence

00:46:10.960 the views that we currently hold

00:46:13.800 right now are exactly the views of God

00:46:16.600 that worked out so well or here's an alternative possibility or you're brainwashed

00:46:23.620 you've been indoctrinating that you think that everything that westerners believe right now

00:46:31.320 is what the scripture says when it actually doesn't the scripture does not speak well of

00:46:37.380 democracy now that being said i am not against what we are supposed to have which is a constitutional

00:46:43.300 republic, where someone is representing people, and there is some form of democracy. Now, I don't

00:46:51.540 believe, and you guys have heard me say it, I'll say it again, because there's not, you know,

00:46:54.420 everybody knows at this point, I don't think everybody should get a vote.

00:47:01.220 Because some people vote poorly. Because they're not, they don't have a vested interest. I think

00:47:11.100 that with the founding of our country there's something to be said for men as heads of households

00:47:17.180 representing their wives and sons and daughters. A household vote where the husband and wife the

00:47:24.160 household is not divorced and segregated where wives are turned against husbands and husbands

00:47:29.520 against wives but a household vote and that household for the record I think needs to have

00:47:34.540 a vested interest in the nation. I would say preferably that they own property

00:47:39.980 and that they have children,

00:47:43.140 that they have a vested interest

00:47:44.800 in the future of that republic.

00:47:48.280 I think that that makes sense.

00:47:50.140 It does not make sense

00:47:51.740 to take someone who doesn't even pay taxes,

00:47:56.080 who doesn't even pay taxes,

00:47:58.640 but rather gets your tax money

00:48:00.740 as a free check every single month

00:48:03.080 and who won't even bother to show up to a voting booth,

00:48:06.300 but will go ahead and mail them a ballot

00:48:08.840 and they won't even bother to fill that out and mail it in.

00:48:11.880 But someone will show up at their apartment complex

00:48:14.780 and go door to door to door and say,

00:48:16.960 excuse me, ma'am, excuse me, sir.

00:48:19.280 Could I come in for a moment?

00:48:21.460 Did you get this in the mail?

00:48:23.060 Can I help you fill this out?

00:48:24.680 And I'll take it to the post office for you.

00:48:26.440 And you want to vote for Biden, right?

00:48:29.700 Because if you don't vote for Biden, you ain't black.

00:48:32.720 That's what Biden said, which is incredibly racist,

00:48:36.020 just for the record, incredibly racist.

00:48:38.840 but that's what happened this happened three years ago this isn't a foreign narrative a story of

00:48:46.440 Joan of Arc you know or something from long ago this is a story right here very recently

00:48:51.740 but a lot of what I want you to see is what a lot of that boils down to is the radical

00:48:57.560 post-war sentiment the modern western sentiments of the underlining guilty party here is

00:49:05.040 egalitarianism, egalitarianism. Radical equality. Everything's equal. Genders are equal.

00:49:12.040 There's different intelligence. But if we do things based on merit, well, then some people

00:49:17.380 will have things that others don't. So it can't be merit. It has to be quotas. It has to be

00:49:23.980 affirmative action. It has to be this. It has to be that. That's not God's design.

00:49:29.540 let God be true as the scripture says though every man were a liar meaning I don't care

00:49:38.140 where you live or when you live the word of God is true even if everybody else is saying something

00:49:44.860 different that we should be like the little boy and the the you know the classic parable that

00:49:49.960 that everyone's saying oh wow look at that look at that wardrobe that the emperor is currently

00:49:54.580 wearing and it was made. It's very sophisticated. Only those who are intelligent are even able to

00:49:59.880 physically, visibly see the different fabrics and cloths, you know, in the emperor's new clothes.

00:50:05.080 And the little boy just stands up and says, he's naked. He's naked. And so should we, with childlike

00:50:12.820 faith in our Lord, our sovereign Lord, who's in authority over everything, we should be like that

00:50:17.360 little boy and stand up and say, he's naked. The emperor has no clothes. And you're all pretending

00:50:23.540 to be smart. And you're all, in our case as Westerners, you're all pretending not only to

00:50:28.080 be smart and sophisticated, but you're pretending to be compassionate. It is pretended compassion.

00:50:34.120 It is pretended empathy, pretended love. But you don't actually love. You don't actually have

00:50:42.000 compassion. No, no, no, no, no. God says that this is injustice, not justice. God says that this is

00:50:49.740 hatred that this is unfair that this is actually oppression that you are showing partiality that

00:50:58.160 you are pitying the poor oh so you no longer pity the rich great well we know you do behind closed

00:51:03.420 doors but on public newscasts you pity the poor but showing pity one direction or the other is

00:51:09.240 both is both an example of sinful partiality and god condemns it in either direction you can do

00:51:17.860 neither so all that being said what we'll see and what we'll have to pick up next week but we'll see

00:51:26.580 and that's if you join us for the first time um we'll have to pick this up next week is a very

00:51:31.840 common phrase um that you will you will come to love i it's kind of it's a household favorite you

00:51:36.340 know it's just like oh yeah we'll come to yeah that's it that's his catchphrase we'll we'll see

00:51:39.960 this next week uh we'll pick it pick it back up uh but what we'll see next week is that god uses

00:51:45.620 a Persian king named Cyrus, and he uses him unilaterally. He just, he sets this guy up,

00:51:58.120 right? You got Nebuchadnezzar, 45 years of the 70 years of captivity. Then you've got his son,

00:52:02.240 the evil guy, right? That's literally his name. And then you've got the, you know, Belshazzar,

00:52:06.360 who is the grandson for three years. And then you've got Darius, right? And Cyrus,

00:52:11.680 the Medes and the Persians. Darius, he's getting old. He hands over the reins fully to Cyrus.

00:52:16.460 And in the first year, just like Nebuchadnezzar, his first year, he takes Israel captive. Well,

00:52:21.140 in the case of Cyrus, the king of the Persians, in the first year of his reign, the Lord

00:52:25.460 supernaturally, sovereignly reaches down and stirs up his heart to do good to the house of God,

00:52:32.900 to the people of Israel. And he does. And it can't be explained. He didn't grow up as a Christian.

00:52:40.820 He wasn't educated in the Christian worldview.

00:52:43.920 He's not secretly behind the scenes an Israelite,

00:52:46.700 like Moses, you know, raised in the house of Pharaoh,

00:52:48.740 but actually was an Israelite by birth.

00:52:51.040 None of that.

00:52:51.660 He's a Persian king.

00:52:53.860 He's got lots of prisoners.

00:52:55.560 He is the king of every kingdom in the world, the text says.

00:52:59.540 That means every single kingdom in the known world at that time,

00:53:03.100 he was the king of.

00:53:03.920 He's not the king of a nation.

00:53:06.100 No, he is the emperor, is the more accurate language.

00:53:09.400 he is the emperor of an empire, an empire that spreads across many nations. In his case,

00:53:17.160 every single known nation in the world at that time. He's got lots of prisoners, is my point.

00:53:23.660 He's taken tons of nations captive. Why? Why in your first year, after 70 years, you got a good

00:53:30.300 thing going, everything's organized, and in your first year, you're going to let these people go,

00:53:34.400 and you're not just going to let them go.

00:53:36.160 You're going to financially resource them

00:53:38.540 from the wealth of your own kingdom.

00:53:41.420 You're going to give them back all the artifacts

00:53:43.980 that your predecessor, Nebuchadnezzar,

00:53:46.380 took all the articles of gold and silver

00:53:49.020 and you're going to move a motion for Israel,

00:53:52.100 their own people, to give free will offerings.

00:53:54.320 But whatever they're lacking after those offerings

00:53:56.320 that you would resource out of the treasury

00:53:58.600 of your own kingdom.

00:54:00.020 And you're going to let them go.

00:54:02.780 Why?

00:54:04.400 Why? Because God is sovereign. And he takes the heart of a king and he directs it like waters.

00:54:11.720 And it's easy for him in whatever direction it should go. And God can work through a representative

00:54:19.500 constitutional republic with not a raw democracy, but certain aspects of democracy, a democratic

00:54:25.740 representative constitutional republic. He can do that. And he can also work through Constantine

00:54:30.740 and charlemagne and king richard the lion-hearted he can work through josiah

00:54:37.700 he can work through david and not just good kings who have known him from their youth

00:54:44.300 but even kings who have been foreign to christ and who have never known him and the beauty of

00:54:53.580 and i think it is beauty i think that's it's a good thing it's because it's remarkable the cool

00:54:58.580 thing about the book of Ezra in the case of Cyrus the Persian king who not only allows Israel to go

00:55:04.660 but resources Israel as far as we know he may not Cyrus might be in hell I'm not saying definitively

00:55:13.740 either way because it's not explicit in the text but in the text it there's nothing clear that says

00:55:19.820 Cyrus is born again. No, all that's said is he knows God in a sense. He's read something in the

00:55:29.500 prophets. He discovered some artifact, some scroll, and the Lord supernaturally moved on his heart in

00:55:34.700 such a way that he realizes if I bless God's people, God will bless me. And he's willing to

00:55:41.800 do it. But there's nothing explicitly says, and Cyrus was born again. Or Cyrus had a genuine

00:55:47.620 heartfelt relationship with Yahweh, the God of Israel. As far as we know, Cyrus knew about God,

00:55:54.020 but he may not have actually known God. But he was known by God. God knew him. Whether Cyrus knew

00:56:01.660 God, I don't know. Whether he was a Christian, I don't know. But God knew him. And you know what,

00:56:07.580 I'm already close enough, so I might as well just drive it home on the nose. I think the subtlety

00:56:12.860 he's already there some of you already picked up on it right donald trump boom just sometimes just

00:56:18.900 shout just shout it you know let's like i'm not going to nuance it donald trump i don't know what

00:56:22.960 god's going to do in the future but in terms of what god did in the past donald trump reminds me

00:56:28.020 of osiris time his fourth year not my faith you know his first three years fantastic

00:56:35.300 now does donald trump know christ i don't i don't know i don't know maybe there's a lot of signs

00:56:43.820 that say no though right the recent you know video you know that it's like right every christian's

00:56:50.080 cringing you know the one that says god made trump it's like oh it feels like a little bit

00:56:56.300 blasphemous like idolatrous like there's jesus and then you know very close second if not on

00:57:00.800 trump like and it doesn't say that you know but that's the feeling there's this cringe kind of

00:57:04.320 feeling so does does donald trump know christ is he born again i don't know maybe i'm not gonna say

00:57:11.600 he's not but i'm also not gonna say he is but does god here's the thing not does trump know christ

00:57:18.040 but does christ know trump and has he been used in the past i don't know what's going to happen

00:57:24.320 in the future but in the past this is not endorsement of who to vote for anything like

00:57:27.500 that. But in the past, has God used Trump and guided and directed his heart like rivers of

00:57:34.180 water to do exactly what he wanted? Uh-huh. And has Trump served the church, Christians in this

00:57:42.620 nation, at least for a season, I would argue those first three years of his administration

00:57:47.680 like a Cyrus type? I think so. So here's my point. I only say that not to make some endorsement

00:57:54.600 about trump not to not to knock on trump or to elevate trump i say that just to make this point

00:57:59.660 as we read the book of ezra don't read this as just a way in which god used to work long long

00:58:06.620 ago no god still is sovereign he still guides the hearts of kings like waters he still uses

00:58:14.640 instruments that are native to the christian faith like israel we'll see that in a moment

00:58:20.140 Zerubbabel. We'll see Zerubbabel. Zerubbabel rebuilt the rubbabel. The rubble of Israel,

00:58:27.820 the rubbabel was rebuilt by Zerubbabel. We'll see that next week. But Zerubbabel from his youth

00:58:33.700 loved the Lord. Genuinely born again. We're going to meet Zerubbabel in heaven. He was a native,

00:58:38.760 right, a Jew, grew up underneath the doctrine of Yahweh. Cyrus, a foreigner who, as far as we can

00:58:45.520 tell he may not even be in heaven he may be in hell he may have never been born again and yet

00:58:50.060 god just like like water just this way nope now this way okay you're gonna let him go up and

00:58:56.580 you're gonna give him a ton of cash up and you're gonna do this and you're gonna do that and god

00:59:00.400 did that then he can do it now all it takes my point is this i've been preaching every week for

00:59:06.860 a while at least at some point in the sermon this has been one of the applications do not despair

00:59:12.520 God takes forever, sometimes, to do something suddenly.

00:59:17.100 Did you know that?

00:59:17.940 Sometimes God seems to take forever to do something suddenly.

00:59:22.700 And part of the problem within 2,000 years of church history with the Christians

00:59:26.820 is often, overnight, they're put in power and they weren't ready for it

00:59:31.360 because they had been blackpilling and despairing,

00:59:33.800 thinking there's no possible way God could ever do this.

00:59:37.720 And part of the reason why within church history,

00:59:40.560 When we look at Christendom, when we look at Constantine, when we look at the Crusades,

00:59:45.180 the faults that you can find, first, they've all been exaggerated.

00:59:48.260 But secondly, the real legitimate faults there, when Christians had power, when they had authority,

00:59:53.680 part of the reason those faults existed at that time is because Christians,

00:59:58.560 they did ignorant things, foolish things, sinful things in moments of power

01:00:03.680 because they weren't prepared for those moments of power

01:00:06.260 because they didn't think God could ever give them power.

01:00:10.560 But he can, and he has, and not just Israel in the Old Testament,

01:00:14.840 but the New Testament church in these last 2,000 years, since the coming of Christ.

01:00:20.520 He's done it before. He can do it again.

01:00:23.140 Power, Westerners, I know it's shocking, but power is not inherently evil.

01:00:28.640 Power is a tool, just like money.

01:00:31.340 It can be used in evil ways or in righteous ways.

01:00:35.300 Josiah wielded power, and it was good.

01:00:38.220 you can use power wisely the goal for christians the goal for christians is not to just neglect

01:00:46.940 power and to be powerless all the time the goal for christians should be to accumulate

01:00:53.980 and wisely steward is much wealth is much power is much fill in the blank with whatever resource

01:01:01.120 as we possibly can for the glory of god and the good the love of our neighbors that's our

01:01:07.480 imperative. Our imperative is not spiritual, financial, political suicide. I think that

01:01:15.800 that doctrine, one of the reasons it has gotten so much momentum is because Christians have been

01:01:22.320 losing again and again and again. So what did we do? Instead of actually allowing all those losses

01:01:29.760 to serve as an indictment and for us to run to the Lord in humility and say, help us. Instead of that,

01:01:36.860 What did we do?

01:01:37.300 That makes way too much sense.

01:01:38.500 Instead, no, no, here's the alternative.

01:01:40.100 We'll come up with a theology

01:01:41.460 with a twist in the scripture that says losing is the goal.

01:01:45.480 So it's not that we've been failing.

01:01:46.960 We've actually been nailing it.

01:01:48.680 Did you see how much we lost the other day?

01:01:51.740 Do you see how weak I was?

01:01:54.080 Do you see at every level, even physical health, right?

01:01:57.440 You got pastors bragging

01:01:59.140 about how little time they spend with exercise.

01:02:02.860 Look at that pastor.

01:02:03.580 He is so fat.

01:02:05.080 He must be super godly.

01:02:10.000 I can literally show you tweets.

01:02:14.600 So, this is another regular application of my preaching,

01:02:19.940 but one of the applications of almost every sermon

01:02:22.260 is by the grace of God, just don't be stupid.

01:02:25.680 Okay, so once again,

01:02:26.920 that could be the title of every sermon.

01:02:28.600 Let's pray.

01:02:29.300 Thank you, Lord, for your mercy and your grace.

01:02:31.940 Help us to be obedient,

01:02:33.940 not just hearers of the word but doers you're sovereign and you do ordain at times that your

01:02:40.320 people would suffer but a theology of the cross a theology of suffering is absolutely a major part

01:02:48.140 of the christian faith but it is not the only part by your grace paul the apostle says in

01:02:55.160 scripture who would suffer with him if not also to share in his glory and that glory is guaranteed

01:03:02.400 to be shared with Christians,

01:03:04.580 your people, in the life to come.

01:03:07.320 But in your sovereignty,

01:03:09.240 sometimes you ordain for Christians

01:03:11.560 to share in that glory,

01:03:13.260 to reign with Christ,

01:03:14.380 not only guaranteed in the life to come,

01:03:16.700 but sometimes due to your mercy

01:03:19.460 in this life as well.

01:03:22.200 And Lord, we pray that if it be your will

01:03:24.420 for Christ's glory,

01:03:26.340 for Christ's sake,

01:03:27.740 and for the good of our children

01:03:29.140 and our grandchildren

01:03:30.100 and love for our neighbor,

01:03:31.320 if it be your will,

01:03:32.400 you do all things right, you're in charge, but we make our petitions in humility known to you,

01:03:38.360 if it be your will. We pray that Christians would reign once again, not only in the life to come,

01:03:44.860 but in this life, and that we would reign in this generation, and in this nation, this place,

01:03:52.340 this time, that you would once again empower Christians, real power, political power,

01:03:59.660 economic power that you would give us real position real opportunity and lord we pray

01:04:06.180 by your grace don't let us blow it let us wield power with humility with submission to scripture

01:04:14.040 as the final authority all for your glory and for the good of your people in jesus name amen

The NXR Podcast - January 07, 2024

SERMON - The Rise of Caesar & The Blessing of Christian Princes

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