SERMON - The Rise of Caesar & The Blessing of Christian Princes
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Length
1 hour and 4 minutes
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18
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27
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69
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Summary
In this episode, we continue our series through the book of Ezra, which is the first book in the Old Testament to be translated into the United States of America. In this series, we discuss how Ezra is similar to the Book of Joshua and how it can have a national and political application.
Transcript
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a new series through the book of Ezra, much anticipated.
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In a nutshell, God used Joshua as commander-in-chief
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to enter into the promised land for the very first time
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and to lead Israel in actually conquering the land
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and establishing Israel in that land to conquer and drive out all of their enemies.
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And so we preach through the book of Joshua, and that's one of the major themes that we saw.
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We know that Joshua also serves as a type of Christ that is a symbol pointing towards
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the higher and greater and ultimate Joshua, Yeshua, Deliverer, who is Jesus.
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And that what Joshua did, in a literal sense, driving out people that were enemies of God,
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and many of them in a very literal sense were not actually people but demonic hybrids. Joshua being
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used by God to drive out descendants of the Nephilim and different demonic peoples and pagan
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peoples out of the promised land so that Israel the people of God could be established there
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and build a holy city to the Lord. That's what Joshua did in a very physical sense and that's
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what Christ has done in the ultimate and spiritual sense by virtue of his life death resurrection and
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ascension Ezra however the book of Ezra is similar to the book of Joshua except instead of the initial
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conquering of the land Ezra depicts for us a picture of rebuilding the ruins after the people
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of God have gone in and conquered the land but then due to their disobedience rebellion against
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god and his statutes they were allowed in god's sovereignty by way of discipline for their sin
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god allowed them to be conquered once again and so joshua is going into the land for the first time
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israel going into the land conquering the land and building a city for god ezra is after 70 years of
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exile in babylon because israel had gone into the land taken over the land but been unfaithful to
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the Lord and disobeyed the Lord. And so God allowed them to be taken captive as discipline
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for their disobedience. And now they're going after 70 years of being disciplined in captivity,
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they're now being liberated in the sovereignty of God, going back into the land and rebuilding
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at a national and political application. When I think of for us in our day, in our context,
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I think that Ezra is actually more relevant than the book of Joshua.
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It's useful for training, rebuking, and equipping the man of God
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But I believe that Ezra is especially relevant,
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in the sense that for us, in the year of our Lord, 2024,
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We're not initially conquering the land to build a city on a hill as the Puritans.
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The Covenanters and many of the pilgrims thought in the founding of our republic,
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they thought of building a city on a hill that would be a light to the nations.
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And no one meant by that, just for the record, that the city on a hill,
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that it would be the new Jerusalem in the sense of a one-to-one ratio replacing Israel.
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They knew that Israel under the old covenant in the Old Testament was unique
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and that America would not be the equivalent of Israel,
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but that America could, in fact, be a Christian nation
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that would be a shining light, an example to other nations
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That's not just a promise for Israel once upon a time,
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but that's a promise for any nation at any time.
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The nation that fears Yahweh will be blessed by God.
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And so that's not just a promise unique to Israel under the Old Covenant,
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And that's how the founders of our nation, our republic, that's how they thought.
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And so I think Ezra is, again, especially relevant for us
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We're not the pilgrims. We're not the Puritans.
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We're not the initial covenanters and the 13 colonies.
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10 out of those 13 of which actually had sanctioned official churches, the equivalent of state
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churches. Remember, the First Amendment is that Congress, the first word is Congress. Congress
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cannot decide, make a law saying that there's a federal church, that at the federal level for the
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nation as a whole, that it's going to be the OPC, Orthodox Presbyterian Church. That's going to be
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the official national church. Congress cannot do that. There's nothing in our Constitution,
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just for the record, everybody is always like, First Amendment, First Amendment,
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of which they probably have read. I was going to say they've never read. They probably have read.
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The problem is not that they haven't read it. The problem is they don't know how to read.
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That's usually the problem in our generation today. There were the equivalent of state churches
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in the very formation of our nation. What you can't have is Congress deciding on a federal
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national church, but the idea of Americans saying that in a general, a creedal, a pan-Protestant
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sense, that our nation is a Christian nation, and that we're going to fear the Lord, and we're going
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to do so exclusively, that we're going to kick to the curb, principled pluralism, this idea that,
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yeah, you can worship Jesus, and you can also, in Ohio, in a state capitol building, set up
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a shrine to Satan, and there's, you know, there's freedom for that too. No, there's not. There's not
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freedom for that. This principle pluralism is just a euphemism for polytheism, and polytheism
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is just a euphemism ultimately for atheism. And so as Americans, I think, and more so as Christian
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Americans, we should reject that notion. And so all that being said, our founding as a republic
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was very much so Christian. And for anybody who's read revisionist history and been indoctrinated
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by a bunch of progressives and liberals. No, it wasn't a bunch of deists and Unitarians who
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founded the nation, right? Thomas Jefferson, maybe not our best example, but he was of a minority.
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Most of the founders, George Washington, I would include as one of them, would have measured up to
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the equivalent of a modern-day evangelical born-again Christian by today's standards.
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George Washington was a Christian, not a mere deist and certainly not a Unitarian.
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We were a Christian nation founded by Christians.
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And then we have apostatized in our sin and rebellion.
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And I believe currently because of that apostasy, walking away from the Lord, rejecting him,
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we are currently a nation that is under God's judgment.
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And I believe it's a severe judgment because he has so blessed us in the beginnings of our republic.
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And despite his blessings, we have so rebelled and disobeyed him that our judgment is even more severe.
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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.
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that Israel had been so blessed by God, and yet, despite God's blessing, despite his covenant-keeping
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faithfulness, his steadfast love, Israel rebelled against God, and then was disciplined, punished
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by God, led off into captivity for 70 years in Babylon, and now, under a new king, namely Cyrus,
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which we'll see here in just a moment, they're being led back into Israel to rebuild the ruins.
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And so again, Joshua is kind of the initiating,
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in its founding, but has rebelled against Christ
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for several decades now, Ezra is almost too on the nose for American Christians. I think Ezra is
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incredibly relevant and incredibly applicable for us as the people of God in this place
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at this time. And so that's part of the purpose in selecting this as the next book of the Bible
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that by God's grace we'll preach through from beginning to end. All right, so without further
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ado, which I'm just going to continue to say that even though technically for the record,
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I just want everybody to know I am aware further ado, that word ado means without further goodbye
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and I'm not saying goodbye. But that's actually what it means. No further goodbye. I'm actually
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leaving now, right? I'm actually, or I'm on a call and we've been saying goodbye, you know,
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for the last five minutes, I'm finally hanging up. That's the proper use of the phrase without
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further ado, but we don't use it that way. We just use it to mean ado means without further
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rambling or whatever and so i'm going to continue to use it because nobody knows the actual meaning
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it's like uh it's like uh eat your cake and have it too which is actually the proper rendering
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because if you eat it then you can't also have it possess it uh to eat at a later time but we
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always say have your cake and eat it too and there are certain things that are so backwards at this
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point that if you say them the right way people will think you're dumb right augustine right what
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do you say? If you want to sound sophisticated, you have to say Augustine. But turns out that
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if you are uneducated, you say Augustine. If you're educated, you say Augustine. And then the
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most educated people go back and say Augustine, right? Because they're like, well, actually,
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that is technically the right way. That's what I've noticed. It's the same with health, right?
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So health is like, okay, I'm going to eat eggs because I'm ignorant. And I'm going to eat the
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white and the yellow. I'm eating the whole thing. I'm sophisticated. I'm not going to eat eggs. I'm
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really intelligent, full circle back to eggs. Turns out they're good. You know, so that's,
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you know, that's the way it works. So anyways, without further ado, improperly used, let's stand
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for the reading of God's word. This is Ezra chapter one. I'll read our text in its entirety.
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When I finish reading the text, I'm going to say, this is the word of the Lord. At which point I
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would appreciate very much if you would respond by saying, thanks be to God. One final time,
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our text for today is the book of Ezra chapter one. The word of the Lord says this in the first
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year of Cyrus, king of Persia, that the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah might be fulfilled,
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the Lord stirred up the spirit of Cyrus, king of Persia, so that he made a proclamation throughout
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all his kingdom and also put it in writing. Thus says Cyrus, king of Persia, the Lord,
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the God of heaven has given me all the kingdoms of the earth and he has charged me to build him
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a house at Jerusalem, which is in Judah. Whoever is among you of all his people, may his God be
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with him. And let him go up to Jerusalem, which is in Judah, and rebuild the house of the Lord,
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the God of Israel. He is the God who is in Jerusalem. And let each survivor in whatever
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place he sojourns be assisted by the men of his place with silver and gold, with goods and with
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beast besides freewill offerings for the house of God that is in Jerusalem. Then rose up the heads
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of the father's houses of Judah and Benjamin and the priest and the Levites, everyone whose spirit
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God had stirred up to go up and rebuild the house of the Lord that is in Jerusalem. And all who were
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about them aided them with vessels of silver, with gold, with goods, with beast, and with costly
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wears besides all that was freely offered. Cyrus, the king, also brought out the vessels of the
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house of the Lord that Nebuchadnezzar had carried away from Jerusalem and placed in the house of his
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gods. Cyrus, king of Persia, brought these out in the charge of Mithradoth, the treasurer, who
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counted them out to Shesh-bazar, the prince of Judah. And this was the number of them, 30 basins
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of gold, a thousand basins of silver, 29 censures, 30 bowls of gold, 410 bowls of silver, and a
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thousand other vessels. All the vessels of gold and of silver were 5,400. And all these did Shesh
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Bazar bring up when the exiles were brought up from Babylonia to Jerusalem. This is the word of
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the Lord. All right, please be seated. Let's go ahead and dive right in. First thing that I want
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to do, because we're starting, this is our first week starting a new book of the Bible. I want to
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provide some historical context so that we can properly place this narrative, this account,
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historical account of Israel, what God did with them at this time. I want us to place it correctly,
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chronologically within the larger story of the Old Testament. So historical context,
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I've written the following. According to biblical accounts, the 70-year captivity had prophetic
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significance. The prophet Jeremiah had predicted a period of 70 years during which the land of
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Judah would lie desolate and the people would serve the king of Babylon. And this is all said
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in Jeremiah chapter 25 verses 11 through 12 and chapter 29 verse 10. In part, the 70 years of
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exile for Israel, being led out of the land of Jerusalem, of Israel, and held in captivity
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in Babylon. In part, this was because Israel had been in the promised land at this point for
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roughly 800 years, and for 490 of those 800 years, they had disobeyed God's Sabbath rest.
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Now, the Sabbath rest was, in their case, the last day of the week, Saturday, so it was a weekly
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Sabbath. We see that in Exodus chapter 20, in the Ten Commandments issued by God through Moses to
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the people of Israel. But in addition to the weekly Sabbath, there were also Sabbaths once
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every seven years, and so a yearly type of Sabbath. And so once every seven years, the seventh year,
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at the end of six years, they were supposed to give a Sabbath rest even to the land. So in the
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same way there was a weekly rest for the people themselves and even for their livestock and beast
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you had to rest your ox you had to rest your donkey on the seventh day in a weekly sense well
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in a seven-year cycle you were supposed to give that last year the seventh year a rest not only
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to the beast not only to the people not only to your servants or to the sojourners in your midst
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but also to the even the land itself and Israel had neglected and rebelled against God in obeying
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this particular commandment for 490 years so the majority of the time over half of the time of the
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800 years that they had actually been in the promised land so 800 years have gone by at this
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point from Israel entering in initially to the promised land and and now them at the end of 800
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years being taken out of the land under the judgment of God his discipline by Nebuchadnezzar
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to the seventh year, one year out of every seven?
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to give the land a rest in obedience to God's command.
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to the book of Ezra, the land is now left desolate.
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and putting them for 70 years in captivity in Babylon.
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Now, in terms of chronological order of the prophets, you have Isaiah.
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And then later, not long later, but a few decades later, you have Jeremiah.
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Isaiah prophesied in multiple instances that Israel would be taken into captivity.
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Jeremiah specifically prophesied the length of time that Israel would be held in captivity
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and when they would be liberated, when they would return.
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So Isaiah spoke, Israel knew this, Isaiah said, you're going to be under the judgment of God for
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your disobedience. Israel's disobedience and rebellion and sin in many, many different ways,
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but one of those ways being neglecting the seventh year, the last year of every seven-year cycle of
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resting the land, the Sabbath rest. But there were many other sins as well. And so Isaiah initially
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said, you're going to be under God's judgment for your disobedience and be taken into captivity.
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Jeremiah further clarifies, specified the prophecies of Isaiah,
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who was a few decades earlier preceding Jeremiah,
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saying this is where you're going to be taken into captivity,
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And here we have it, at the opening of the book of Ezra.
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spoken through Jeremiah, it's been precisely 70 years at this point.
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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.
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and that there's going to be a lot of work to do
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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.
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There's a sense in which Israel was in captivity.
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And again, that is God's discipline, his judgment over Israel for that time period.
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And it was hard in one sense, right, that you don't have freedom.
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And that was God's rod of discipline for Israel for 70 years.
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But there's another difficulty in a different sense in freedom.
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There's a difficulty that comes with captivity, namely less freedom.
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But there's a difficulty that comes with freedom, namely hard work.
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And so there were some in Israel, as far as we can tell, by way of implication from the text,
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that weren't necessarily on board for this project because it's not just returning to the land of freedom.
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It's returning to the land of freedom that has been desolated to rubble where there's going to be a building project
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which is going to require blood, sweat, and tears.
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You're going to have to rebuild the ruins of this land, this great land where you once lived.
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But you've been decimated because of your disobedience to God.
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God and his sovereignty as a judgment for your rebellion against him allowed you to be conquered.
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And from the bottom up, starting at square one, you have to rebuild the ruins.
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not in the ultimate sense it's your fault it's your father's fault for their disobedience and
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rejection of god's command so that's the context that's where we are reading a little bit further
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with historical context just to give you an idea now of the last 70 years so that gives you the
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big picture of joshua coming into the land as a successor of moses 800 years total that they're
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in the land the last 490 years neglecting to give that seventh year sabbath rest 490 divided by
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seven, exactly 70 years. And so that's the significance and the reasoning. It's not
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arbitrary, but the reasoning behind God's decision in his providence to give them 70 years of
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captivity in Babylon. But now giving you a little bit more history of the 70 years of captivity,
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I've written the following. At the opening of the book of Ezra, the condition of the government in
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Babylon where Israel was being held captive was this. Nebuchadnezzar, right? So when they're first
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taken captive? It's Nebuchadnezzar. He's the king of Babylon at the time. Nebuchadnezzar took many
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of the people of Israel captive in the first year of his reign. Nebuchadnezzar ruled for 45 years,
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right? So he's got a long tenure there, followed by his son, evil Merodach, right? When you're
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wondering who's the bad guy, you know, sometimes, you know, God just makes it really simple, right?
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So maybe it means something totally different,
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with Justin before the service, like John Bunyan.
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He'd be like, okay, this guy is Lord hate good.
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And it seems like God in his sovereignty, you know, being a little bit obvious, at least for the English readers.
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So Nebuchadnezzar, 45 years of the 70 years, because he took Israel captive in his first year of his reign.
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in the first year, took Israel captive, and then he's followed after 45 years by his son,
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evil Merodach, for 23 years, right? So we're almost at 70 at this point. 45 plus 23, we're at,
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what is that? 67. No? About. Okay, and then his grandson, Belshazzar, for three years,
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totaling seven years, right? So after, so it's Nebuchadnezzar, then evil Merodach, then his
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grandson Belshazzar for three years totaling the 70 years now Nebuchadnezzar was judged by God
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for many sins he was not a great guy all right and he was judged multiple times there's a lot
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that you can read throughout the the Old Testament scripture about Nebuchadnezzar he had some shiny
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moments it wasn't all bad every now and then he did something good but on the whole not a great
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king not a great guy and he was judged for many sins but one of the sins that he was judged for
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not least of which was his indifference towards the people of Israel, which was demonstrated by
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his failure to release his prisoners, his captives, as mentioned in Isaiah chapter 14, verse 17.
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So this is mentioned by Isaiah that Nebuchadnezzar would be judged by God for his many sins, not least
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of which specifically was his sin of indifference, his lack of sympathy towards the people of Israel
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And I'll make a point on that in just one moment.
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But the king of Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar, refused.
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Therefore, Babylon's sins reached their limit eventually,
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precisely at the 70-year mark their sins had reached their limit in the sight of god
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leading to to its own destruction by darius the mede and cyrus the persian they joined together
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the medes and the persians darius the king of the medes cyrus the king of the persians as recorded
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in daniel chapter 5 and when darius grew old he passed the government on to cyrus who in turn
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played a key role in the Jews' liberation. Now, one point I want to make real quick. God judged
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Nebuchadnezzar, who was the king of Babylon, and in his first year of his 45-year-long reign,
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he took Israel captive. And God judged Nebuchadnezzar for not showing mercy and compassion
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to the people of Israel and letting them go. And yet, here's the thing, God had prophesied
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through jeremiah previously that israel would not be let go but that they would in fact be held
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captive for 70 years so it was the will of god that nebuchadnezzar should not let israel go
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and it was the will of god that nebuchadnezzar do the right moral thing which was to let israel go
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and we think in those we get confused um it's important i've said this before but i want to
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say it again. In theological terms, this is what we would refer to as the two, not one, but two
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wills of God. And it's not two contradicting wills. It's not a contradiction. It may be an
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apparent paradox, but it is not in a legitimate sense a paradox or a contradiction. God has two
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wills. And theologians, this is not, nobody, I didn't come up with this, all right? This is not
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my theology. I don't have my theology. All my theology is somebody else's. Even the Christian
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nationalism thing. All that is is just theology from Puritans and from the Protestant reformers
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and from these guys a few hundred years ago. It's like, man, this guy, his theology is really
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radical. All you have to do to have radical theology is just read a book that was written
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more than 60 years old. That's all you have to do. Just read a book, what the common person
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thought for thousands of years until 15 minutes ago. Repeat that in your own words, and boom,
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you're radical okay so um all that being said the the point is this the two wills of god which is a
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a classic traditional reform doctrine that has been held for centuries is that god has his hidden
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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
00:27:28.140
to give you a little bit of scripture for that,
00:27:29.740
one reference would be when God says to Israel,
00:27:34.560
they say that the hidden things belong to the Lord.
00:27:45.360
That they recognize that there are things that are hidden
00:27:53.640
So when we speak of God's hidden will versus his revealed 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,
00:28:17.120
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,
00:29:07.440
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?
00:29:55.960
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.
00:30:05.900
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.
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His blood spilled out for the remission of sins
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00:30:49.220
the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.
00:30:53.720
from ages past before the foundations of the world were laid,
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.
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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
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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
00:36:10.360
He is sovereign, the head, the supreme authority
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.
00:37:36.320
And that includes not only suffering, but it also includes sin.
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
1.00
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
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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.
1.00
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.
00:40:57.880
Do you know why a raw democracy is foolish?
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Because not all people were meant to rule.
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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,
00:41:48.480
For instance, not every single individual person
00:41:51.740
has the same physical strength, has the same IQ.
00:41:57.640
Did you know that some people are more intelligent than others?
00:42:07.440
who doesn't have dementia in a position of authority.
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.
00:42:27.500
I have eyes and I'm looking and it's not equal.
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
00:43:34.320
DEI, diversity, equity, inclusion, that's what it is.
1.00
00:44:07.680
Egalitarianism when applied to gender, right?
1.00
00:44:12.240
Because, well, the patriarchy, it had a good run
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00:44:19.340
but eventually it'll boil down to the same.
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00:44:24.940
It's ultimately, its ultimate goal is sameness.
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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.
00:44:54.980
And then eventually it's like, okay, I can't keep up with it anymore.
00:45:03.500
Egalitarianism becomes socialism, which is just the fourth stench of communism.
00:45:12.780
In all these different ways, you're just steamrolling everything into one.
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
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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
0.95
00:47:51.740
to take someone who doesn't even pay taxes,
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and who won't even bother to show up to a voting booth,
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
00:48:29.700
Because if you don't vote for Biden, you ain't black.
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00:48:32.720
That's what Biden said, which is incredibly racist,
0.98
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.
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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,
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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.
00:52:43.920
He's not secretly behind the scenes an Israelite,
00:52:46.700
like Moses, you know, raised in the house of Pharaoh,
00:52:55.560
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,
00:53:06.100
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,
00:53:41.420
You're going to give them back all the artifacts
00:53:54.320
But whatever they're lacking after those offerings
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
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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
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tell he may not even be in heaven he may be in hell he may have never been born again and yet
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god just like like water just this way nope now this way okay you're gonna let him go up and
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you're gonna give him a ton of cash up and you're gonna do this and you're gonna do that and god
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did that then he can do it now all it takes my point is this i've been preaching every week for
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a while at least at some point in the sermon this has been one of the applications do not despair
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God takes forever, sometimes, to do something suddenly.
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Sometimes God seems to take forever to do something suddenly.
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And part of the problem within 2,000 years of church history with the Christians
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is often, overnight, they're put in power and they weren't ready for it
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because they had been blackpilling and despairing,
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thinking there's no possible way God could ever do this.
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And part of the reason why within church history,
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When we look at Christendom, when we look at Constantine, when we look at the Crusades,
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the faults that you can find, first, they've all been exaggerated.
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But secondly, the real legitimate faults there, when Christians had power, when they had authority,
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part of the reason those faults existed at that time is because Christians,
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they did ignorant things, foolish things, sinful things in moments of power
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because they weren't prepared for those moments of power
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because they didn't think God could ever give them power.
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But he can, and he has, and not just Israel in the Old Testament,
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but the New Testament church in these last 2,000 years, since the coming of Christ.
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Power, Westerners, I know it's shocking, but power is not inherently evil.
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It can be used in evil ways or in righteous ways.
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you can use power wisely the goal for christians the goal for christians is not to just neglect
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power and to be powerless all the time the goal for christians should be to accumulate
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and wisely steward is much wealth is much power is much fill in the blank with whatever resource
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as we possibly can for the glory of god and the good the love of our neighbors that's our
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imperative. Our imperative is not spiritual, financial, political suicide. I think that
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that doctrine, one of the reasons it has gotten so much momentum is because Christians have been
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losing again and again and again. So what did we do? Instead of actually allowing all those losses
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to serve as an indictment and for us to run to the Lord in humility and say, help us. Instead of that,
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with a twist in the scripture that says losing is the goal.
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Do you see at every level, even physical health, right?
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about how little time they spend with exercise.
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So, this is another regular application of my preaching,
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but one of the applications of almost every sermon
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is by the grace of God, just don't be stupid.
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Thank you, Lord, for your mercy and your grace.
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not just hearers of the word but doers you're sovereign and you do ordain at times that your
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people would suffer but a theology of the cross a theology of suffering is absolutely a major part
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of the christian faith but it is not the only part by your grace paul the apostle says in
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scripture who would suffer with him if not also to share in his glory and that glory is guaranteed
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you do all things right, you're in charge, but we make our petitions in humility known to you,
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if it be your will. We pray that Christians would reign once again, not only in the life to come,
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but in this life, and that we would reign in this generation, and in this nation, this place,
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this time, that you would once again empower Christians, real power, political power,
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economic power that you would give us real position real opportunity and lord we pray
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by your grace don't let us blow it let us wield power with humility with submission to scripture
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as the final authority all for your glory and for the good of your people in jesus name amen